The best writing is rewriting.

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

Much of our adult morality, in books and out of them, has a stuffiness unworthy of childhood. Our grown-up conclusions often rest on perilously soft bottom.

The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.

The complaint about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamlined trains and cars is that all these objets modernize, while adequate and amusing in themselves, tend to make the people who use them look dated. It is an honest criticism. The human race has done nothing much about changing its own appearance to conform to the form and texture of its appurtenances.

Once in everyone's life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half-asleep.

To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.