There exists a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.

Do you remember writing in your diary," he said, "that it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was at least a person who understood you and could be talked to? You were right. I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery.