I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place.

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.

I would have been content with any job however thankless, in any quarter however remote, if I had a chance of making a corner of the desert blossom and the solitary place glad.

We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.

"What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie?" he asked. "The sense of competence," was the answer, given without hesitation.