A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.

In my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.

I have done more for San Francisco than any of its old residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully 300,000. I could have done more - I could have gone earlier - it was suggested.

Schoolboy days are no happier than the days of afterlife, but we look back upon them regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school and how we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed – because we have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of the canonized ethic and remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden-sword pageants, and its fishing holidays.

I'm the only person who has ever found the right way to build an autobiography.