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

... beauty, like ecstasy, has always been hostile to the commonplace. And the commonplace, under its popular label of the normal,has been the supreme authority for Homo sapiens since the days when he was probably arboreal.

Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.

It is only by knowing how little life has in store for us that we are able to look on the bright side and avoid disappointment.

though pleasure may be purchasable, happiness cannot be bought for a price.

... in the nineteen-thirties ... the most casual reader of murder mysteries could infallibly detect the villain, as soon as there entered a character who had recently washed his neck and did not commit mayhem on the English language.

... the life of the mind is reality, and love without romantic illumination is a spiritless matter.