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.

Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them - their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.

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

It's all life is. Just going 'round kissing people.

You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.

There's a right way of doing things and a wrong way. If you've made up your mind to be different from everybody else, I don't suppose I can stop you, but I really don't think it's very considerate.

Happiness, remarked Maury Noble one day, is only the first hour after the alleviation of some especially intense misery.