Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.

The trouble is. . .that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline.

Listen, Harriet. I do unterstand. I know you don't want either to give or to take ... You don't want ever again to have to depend for happiness on another person." "That's true. That's the truest thing you ever said." "All right. I can respect that. Only you've got to play the game. Don't force an emotional situation and then blame me for it." "But I don't want any situation. I want to be left in peace.

I have never regretted Paradise Lost since I discovered that it contained no eggs-and-bacon.

Nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of beginning a letter with the first person singular.

None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.

There are crimes which the Law cannot reach.