We are ruled by chance but never have enough patience to accept its despotism.

No country has suffered so much from the ruins of war while being at peace as the American.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.

Though man is the only beast that can write, he has small reason to be proud of it. When he utters something that is wise it is nothing that the river horse does not know, and most of his creations are the result of accident.

We are uneasy with an affectionate man, for we are positive he wants something of us, particularly our love.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.