Weak people can be very stubborn.

It was pleasant to talk shop again; to use that elliptical, allusive speech that one uses only with another of one's trade.

One would expect boredom to be a great yawning emotion, but it isn't, of course. It's a small niggling thing.

A man may own a ship, but unless he is captain of a crew he goes where the ship goes.

That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight.

Riches ... don't consist in having things, but in not having to do something you don't want to do. ... Riches is being able to thumb your nose.

There were people whose only interest in life was writing letters. To the newspapers, to authors, to strangers, to City Councils, to the police. It did not much matter to whom; the satisfaction of writing seemed to be all.