Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversations.

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. People are very inclined to set moral standards for others.

How frail and ephemeral is the material substance of letters, which makes their very survival so hazardous. Print has a permanence of its own, though it may not be much worth preserving, but a letter! Conveyed by uncertain transportation, over which the sender has no control; committed to a single individual who may be careless or inappreciative; left to the mercy of future generations, of families maybe anxious to suppress the past, of the accidents of removals and house-cleanings, or of mere ignorance. How often it has been by the veriest chance that they have survived at all.

Language is like soil. However rich, it is subject to erosion, and its fertility is constantly threatened by uses that exhaust itsvitality. It needs constant re-invigoration if it is not to become arid and sterile.

It takes two to write a letter as much as it takes two to make a quarrel.

The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion.

[On newspapers:] A first draft of history.