I read the newspapers with lively interest. It is seldom that they are absolutely, point-blank wrong. That is the popular belief, but those who are in the know can usually discern an embryo of truth, a little grit of fact, like the core of a pearl, round which have been deposited the delicate layers of ornament.

The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana Cigar.

If one's object is ascetic, it is far better to stay in London or Paris or New York; there is practically no extreme of heat or cold, physical risk, loneliness, hunger or thirst that cannot, with a little ingenuity, be conveniently achieved in the centres of civilization.

What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen.

Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.

I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.