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.

you may call a person vain, and they will smile; you may call them immoral, and they may even feel flattered - but call them narrow-minded and they have done with you.

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.

there is such a mistaken notion abroad in this country that the individual who makes sharp remarks must be sincere, while the one who says pleasant things must be more or less a humbug.

while nearly every way of falling in love is kind, every way of getting out of love is cruel.

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.

there is no doubt that the garrulous bore is the most maddening creature to be shut up with for any length of time, on the wide earth. ... As a matter of fact, I have sometimes wondered if these impulsive, perfectly meaningless murders of which one has read at times, can have come about through one party babbling on endlessly - just once too often - when the other longed to be left in peace.