I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.

A man who takes himself too seriously will find that no one else takes him seriously.

He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

America is the noisiest country that ever existed. One is waked up in the morning, not by the singing of the nightingale, but by the steam whistle.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.