An author who enjoys writing may sometimes please other people by accident, but he can never pass on to any one else the zestful thrill he feels himself.

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.

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.

I suppose there is hardly any one in the civilized world - particularly of those who do just a little more every day than they really have strength to perform - who has not at some time regarded bed as a refuge.

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.

... we condone the most bitter and vindictive intolerance from a desire to appear tolerant, and run to prove that badness is not as bad as it seems, by pointing out that goodness is not so good as it looks.

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.