Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together-just the two of you.

Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.

New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!

It is by all odds the loftiest of cities. It even managed to reach the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the depression.

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.

Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

The only sense that is common in the long run, is the sense of change and we all instinctively avoid it.