Censors are necessary, increasingly necessary, if America is to avoid having a vital literature.

Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

I once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow's foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization.

You want to know whether I believe in ghosts? Of course I do not believe in them. If you had known as many of them as I have, you would not believe in them either.

A little while with grief and laughter, And then the day will close; The shadows gather ... what comes after No man knows.