I like France, where everybody thinks he's Napoleon--down here everybody thinks he's Christ.

So he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong, just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness.

This is what I think now: that the natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness.

She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. “It’s full of-“ I hesitated. “Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it.

They always believe that 'things are in a bad way now,' but they 'haven't any faith in these idealists.' One minute they call Wilson 'just a dreamer, not practical'- a year later they rail at him for making his dreams realities. They haven't clear logical ideas on one single subject except a sturdy, stolid opposition to all change. They don't think uneducated people should be highly paid, but they won't see that if they don't pay the uneducated people their children are going to be uneducated too, and we're going round and round in a circle. That- is the great middle class.

The helpless ecstasy of loosing himself in her charm was a powerful opiate rather than a tonic.

It's not a slam at you when people are rude, it's a slam at the people they've met before.