Grown people everywhere are always likely to cling to the religion they were brought up in.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

We had an abundance of mangoes, papaias and bananas here, but the pride of the islands, the most delicious fruit known to men, cherimoya, was not in season. It has a soft pulp, like a pawpaw, and is eaten with a spoon.

Life was a fairy-tale, then, it is a tragedy now. When I was 43 and John Hay 41 he said life was a tragedy after 40, and I disputed it. Three years ago he asked me to testify again: I counted my graves, and there was nothing for me to say. I am old; I recognize it but I don't realize it. I wonder if a person ever really ceases to feel young - I mean, for a whole day at a time.

It is curious and interesting to notice what an attraction a fussy, mincing, nickel-plated word has for you.

To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else -- these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial.

As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.