It is in bed that we learn to bear the inevitable. We are learning this all the time while we lie with our face turned to the wall thinking we are doing nothing.

I know what kind of people would have the hottest corner in my conception of hell. It would be those who have helped to give goodness a bad name.

one of the greatest hindrances to happiness in the present day is our tendency to standardize our conception of it.

True depression is a terribly real thing. Some of the noblest men and women in the world have been prone to it ... They may have no reason for feeling more unhappy at that particular period than at any other. Their worldly circumstances may be just what they have been for a long time past, and perfectly satisfactory. But there suddenly closes down on them a fog of the mind which exaggerates and distorts everything.

there are - as every one knows - two kinds of writing: one coming out of your vitals and the other from the top of your head. The first is the only sort from which any true private pleasure can be gained, for it is a way of getting something out of life which seemed to be there in childhood, when childhood is quite over.

Results have nothing at all whatever to do with the private fun of being an author. There lies the answer to the problem which puzzles many wise people. Now it is plain why there are so many of us ... But the public fun of being an author is rather apt to wear thin.

Though the worship of riches is an old religion, there has never been a danger that it might become the sole religion. And yet that is what is surely going to happen in the world.