It is when we are faced with death that we turn most bookish.

Let us stay at home: there we are decent. Let us not go out: our defects wait for us at the door, like flies.

Life is what our character makes it. We fashion it, as a snail does its shell. A man can say: I never made a fortune because it is not in my character to be rich.

A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.

Some people are so boring that they make you waste an entire day in five minutes.

In morals, always do as others do; in art, never.