Man pines to live but cannot endure the days of his life.

Everything ultimately fails, for we die, and that is either the penultimate failure or our most enigmatical achievement.

I know sage, wormwood, and hyssop, but I can't smell character unless it stinks.

It is hideous and coarse to assume that we can do something for others-and it is vile not to endeavor to do it.

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 is most appalling in an F. Scott Fitzgerald book is that it is peopleless fiction: Fitzgerald writes about spectral, muscledsuits; dresses, hats, and sleeves which have some sort of vague, libidinous throb. These are plainly the product of sickness.

Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.