An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.

Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.

Who, being loved, is poor?

The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.

History is merely gossip