In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul.

I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.

In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once.

Beware of monotony; it's the mother of all the deadly sins.

It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.

I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views.