Sorrento, August. For two weeks now I haven't heard a German word or understood an Italian one. This way one can manage to live with people; everything goes like clockwork and no irksome misunderstanding can arise.

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

One must read all writers twice--the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.

A good writer does not receive anywhere near the number of poison-pen letters that is commonly assumed. Among a hundred jackassesthere are not ten who will admit to being jackasses, and at most one who will put it in writing.

My readers think that I write for the day because my writings are based on the day. So I shall have to wait until my writings are obsolete. Then they may acquire timeliness.

Parliamentarianism means putting political prostitution in barracks.

The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant.