Always remember this: If you don't attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.

Chopin--Two embalmers at work upon a minor poetthe scent of tuberosesAutumn rain.

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

It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities.

A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man.

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

The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long as they are ready to swallow the immemorial official theory that protesting against the stealings of the archbishop's secretary's nephew's mistress' illegitimate son is a sin against the Holy Ghost.