We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without.

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow.

In the future there are going to be no pretty girls, for the simple reason there will be no plain girls against which to contrast them. Of late I have done some systematic reading of ladies papers. The plain girl submits to a course of "treatment." In eighteen months she bursts upon Society an acknowledged beauty.

If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.

Better to work and fail than to sleep one's life away.

I like cats.... When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stoop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace.

I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.