For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.

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

All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.

The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.

There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.

The public, with its mob yearning to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose, demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties.

Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull