The world of the egotist is, inevitably, a narrow world, and the boundaries of self are limited to the close horizon of personality.... But, within this horizon, there is room for many attributes that are excellent.

There is a terrible loneliness in the spring.

In the past few years, I have made a thrilling discovery ... that until one is over sixty, one can never really learn the secret of living. One can then begin to live, not simply with the intense part of oneself, but with one's entire being.

I suppose I am a born novelist, for the things I imagine are more vital and vivid to me than the things I remember.

it is wiser to be conventionally immoral than unconventionally moral. It isn't the immorality they object to, but the originality.

What was time itself but the bloom, the sheath enfolding experience? Within time, and with time alone, there was life - the gleam, the quiver, the heartbeat, the immeasurable joy and anguish of being.

First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist.