The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her.

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.

The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

The feelings that Beethoven put into his music were the feelings of a god. There was something olympian in his snarls and rages, and there was a touch of hellfire in his mirth.

There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.

On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.