Life is the art of being well deceived, and to succeed, it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make one almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie.

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

Now and then it is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses.

Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.