The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.

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.

It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Sin is the only real colour element left in modern life.

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.

Life under a good government is rarely dramatic; life under a bad government is always so.