There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.

The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despots dread of a newspaper that laughs.

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.

Many of the cemeteries are beautiful, and are kept in perfect order. When one goes from the levee or the business streets [of New Orleans] to it, to a cemetery, he observes to himself that if those people down there would live as neatly while they are alive as they do after they are dead, they would find many advantages in it; and besides, their quarter would be the wonder and admiration of the business world.

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval.

A country without a patent office and good patent laws is just a crab, and can't travel any way but sideways and backways.