there is no greater fraud or bore than the writer who has acquired the art of saying nothing brilliantly.

The grief of childhood is terrible while it lasts, it is so abandoned and so all-possessing.

[Alexander] Hamilton estimated portrait painters as thieves of time.

No matter how hard a man may labor, some woman is always in the background of his mind. She is the one reward of virtue.

Whether you fail or set the world on fire cannot make so very much difference if only you have the opportunity to try for it, to work for it, to think of nothing else!

I want books written out of a brain and heart and soul crowded and vital with Life, spelled with a big L. I want poetry bursting with passion. I don't care a hang for the 'verbal felicities.' They'll do for the fringe, but I want the garment to warm me first.

the only revenge worth having is success.