I drink exactly as much as I want, and one drink more.

The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them.

The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters.

The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.

The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.

High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they sympathize with.

A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.