it was always insolent for a common man to take a chair in the presence of a lady - the word LADY, we may be sure, capitalized in her mind, and denoting not sex but rank.

You can't wish a body any worse luck than to get what he wants.

What a fearfully distracting, perplexing and heart-searching business it is to live.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

I never heard of anybody who admired the character of sheep. Even the gentlest human personalities in contact with them are annoyed by their lack of brains, courage and initiative, by their extraordinary ability to get themselves into uncomfortable or dangerous situations and then wait in inert helplessness for someone to rescue them.

there's no such thing as luck. Nothing ever just happens to anybody. ... nothing can really happen to a person till he lets it happen.

Libraries are the vessels in which the seed corn for the future is stored.