stoicism is the fundamental characteristic of the French.

The human mind has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

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

Every leader of a great revolution is a fanatic and a Jesuit.

Nowhere can it rain harder and with a more tiresome persistence than in California during the brief season when it rains at all.

Here is a simple recipe to begin with. Get up every morning with the set intention of writing and go to your desk and sit there for three hours, whether you accomplish anything or not. Before long you will find that you are writing madly, not waiting for inspiration.

the curse of human nature is imagination. When a long anticipated moment comes, we always find it pitched a note too low, for the wings of imagination are crushed into its withering sides under the crowding hordes of petty realities.