Letterwriting is the natural outlet of the "odds." The busy-bodies, the idle, the perverted, the cranks, the feel-it-my-duties ... Also the plain depraved. They all write letters. It's their safe outlet, you see. They can be as interfering, as long-winded, as obscene, as pompous, as one-idea'd, as they like on paper, and no one can kick them for it. So they write. My God, how they write!

Lack of education is an extraordinary handicap when one is being offensive.

Horse sense is the instinct that keeps horses from betting on men.

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.

It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don't want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn't it.

After three days without one, the desire to read a newspaper vanished. And really, one was happier without.

You can't have a tin can tied to your tail and go through life pretending it isn't there.