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.

Perhaps Samuel Johnson was a great man; he was certainly a drumbling one.

Every decision you make is a mistake.

We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.

The Americans have always been food, sex, and spirit revivalists.

The earnings of a poet could be reckoned by a metaphysician rather than a bookkeeper.

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