We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.

I may as well tell you, here and now, that if you are going about the place thinking things pretty, you will never make a modern poet. Be poignant, man, be poignant!

One of the drawbacks to life is that it contains moments when one is compelled to tell the truth.

It was one of the most disgusting spectacles I've ever seen-- this white-haired old man, who should have been thinking of the hereafter, standing there lying like an actor.

I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, a man ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning. The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to be looked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmth and optimism.

His whole aspect was that of a man who has unexpectedly been struck by lightning.

There are three things in the world that he held in the smallest esteem - slugs, poets and caddies with hiccups.