Understanding humor is like dissecting a live frog. It can be done, but the frog tends to die in the process.

Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but by then, it's dead.

A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.

The whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.

Walden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this is mine. It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest, and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for relief in moments of defluxion or despair.

Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself.

Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.