God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, and the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; he will set them above their betters.

It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventure into cynicism.

In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.

No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia.

The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

Skin diseases are something doctors like, the patient neither dies nor gets well.

Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic touches to the victim. Happiness probably consists largely in the capacity to detect and relish them. A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.