There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.

There's no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow.

Her failure was a useful preliminary to success.

I was just a screw or cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else.

There is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were all feeding off their gold plate; not now! At present they have not only my sympathy but my preference. They are the last representatives of our native industries.

Through this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity... Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives there was doubtless a real past, yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo.

Life is made up of compromises.