The lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to learn from his book.

My friend, when a man has anything to tell in this world, the difficulty is not to make him tell it, but to prevent him from telling it too often.

It exasperated her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many unhappy years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she had so carefully struggled with and stifled for the sake of keeping well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort of sincere human contact.

There are no perfectly honorable men; but every true man has one main point of honor and a few minor ones.

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time.... What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

When you read a biography remember that the truth is never fit for publication.

I like to quote myself frequently and often, it makes me sound much more intelligent than I actually am.