Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.

Have you noticed ... there is never any third act in a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.

The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.

Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.

Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

"After all," as a pretty girl once said to me, "women are a sex by themselves, so to speak."

People are either born hosts or born guests.