The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who on the grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies.

As for me, my literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one main idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in brief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety, and know of no human right that is one-tenth as valuable as the simple right to utter what seems (at the moment) to be the truth

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

The plain people, hereafter as in the past, will continue to make their own language, and the best that grammarians can do is to follow after it, haltingly, and not often with much insight into it.

One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.

Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world.