Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.

I roll out of my couch every morning with the more agreeable expectations.

The average schoolmaster is, and always must be, an ass.

What ails the truth is that it is mainly uncomfortable, and often dull. The human mind seeks something more amusing, and more caressing.

It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.

The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not religion.

Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.