Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing.

Leisure is being allowed to do nothing.

I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.

I do not believe that any human being is fundamentally happier for being finally lost in a crowd, even if it is called a crowd of comrades.

You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

Christianity met the mythological search for romance by being a story and the philosophical search for truth by being a true story.

I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don't, as a rule.