I might give my life for my friend, but he had better not ask me to do up a parcel.

What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

The truth is that the phenomena of artistic production are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so far from an accurate scientific and psychological knowledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced to accept them as empirical facts; and empirical and non-explanatory names are the names that suit them best.

It is a matter of life and death for married people to interrupt each others stories; for it they did not, they would burst.

To become young again would seem to me an appalling prospect. Youth is a kind of delirium, which can be cured, if it is ever cured at all, by years of painful treatment.

A slight touch of friendly malice and amusement towards those we love keeps our affections for them from turning flat.

Don't tell friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.