Never confuse activity with action.

In a few days I'll have lived one score and three days in this vale of tears. On I plod-always bored, often drunk, doing no penance for my faults-rather do I become more tolerant of myself from day to day, hardening my crystal heart with blasphemous humor and shunning only toothpicks, pathos, and poverty as being the three unforgivable things in life.

The failure and the success both believe in their hearts that they have accurately balanced points of view, the success because he's succeeded, and the failure because he's failed. The successful man tells his son to profit by his father's good fortune, and the failure tells his son to profit by his father's mistakes.

They talked aimlessly back and forth, each speaking for the other.

Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.

Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one.

Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.