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.
H. L. MenckenIt is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventure into cynicism.
H. L. MenckenIt seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd be in New York. I thoroughly detest New York, though I have to go there very often.... Have you ever noticed that no American writer of any consequence lives in Manhattan? Dreiser tried it (after many years in the Bronx), but finally moved to California.
H. L. MenckenOf all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal.
H. L. Mencken