The capacity to suffer varies more than anything that I have observed in human nature.

It is easier to influence strong than weak characters in life.

The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. . . . There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.

Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.

Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.

the announcement that you are going to tell a good story (and the chuckle that precedes it) is always a dangerous opening.

Haunted from my early youth by the transitoriness and pathos of life, I was aware that it is not enough to say "I am doing no harm," I ought to be testing myself daily, and asking myself what I am really achieving.