The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man.

A death is the most terrible of facts.

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

I live, I live, with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. The years pass and one has only one life. If one has a thing at all one must do it and keep on and on and on trying to do it better.

Remember that the secret of all learning is patience and that curiosity is not the same thing as a thirst for knowledge.

There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.

Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.