Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.

Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.

The only one you need in your life is that person who shows you he needs you in his.

I gave my genius to my life, but my talent to my art.

To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.