His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.

For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

A process which makes one rogue cleverer than another.

The Bostonians take their learning too sadly: culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their "Hub," as they call it, is the paradise of prigs.

The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.