Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.

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.

I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

Diplomacy is the lowest form of politeness because it misquotes the greatest number of people. A nation, like an individual, if it has anything to say, should simply say it.

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

When I get sick of what men do, I have only to walk a few steps in another direction to see what spiders do. Or what the weather does. This sustains me very well indeed.