All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The reflection that they-like Columbus-didn't discover what they expected to discover, and didn't discover what they started out to discover, doesn't trouble them. All they remember is that they discovered America; they forget that they started out to discover some patch or corner of India.

Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.

Which is him?" The grammar was faulty, maybe, but we could not know, then, that it would go in a book someday.

You can't break a bad habit by throwing it out the window. You've got to walk it slowly down the stairs.

I ordinarily smoke fifteen cigars during my five hours' labours, and if my interest reaches the enthusiastic point, I smoke more. I smoke with all my might, and allow no intervals.

Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who didn't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves- people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.

Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.