Hatred, for the man who is not engaged in it, is a little like the odor of garlic for one who hasn't eaten any.

Somebody told me I should put a pebble in my mouth to cure my stuttering. Well, I tried it, and during a scene I swallowed the pebble. That was the end of that.

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.

A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.

The biologist passes. The frog stays the same.

If a given scientist had not made a given discovery, someone else would have done so a little later. Johann Mendel dies unknown after having discovered the laws of heredity: thirty-five years later, three men rediscover them. But the book that is not written will never be written. The premature death of a great scientist delays humanity; that of a great writer deprives it.

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.