Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?

We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.

Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.

In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously! I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is new to me for a nightmare to lead me to a lobster. It is commonly the other way.

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.