The fact is, for most of us, what happens to ourselves is so much more important than what happens to other people that the smallest mote in our own eye will prevent us from being unduly harrowed by someone else's beam.

Money's a very serious thing - especially when you haven't got any.

I used to do miserably in English literature, which I thought was a sign of moral turpitude. As I look back on it, I think it was rather to my credit. The notion of actually putting writers' words into other words is quite ridiculous because why bother if writers mean what they mean, and if they don't, why read them? There is, I suppose, a case for studying literary works in depth, but I don't quite know what 'in depth' means unless you read a paragraph over and over again.

I do not approve of children being beaten. It is always a confession of failure.

there are virtues which are very well in the abstract, but which, encountered in the flesh, can be a source of extreme irritation.

One cannot withdraw from the life of the community. Injury to one member of it cannot fail to be the concern of all.

A good many established writers seem to have the feeling that some day they are going to be found out, revealed as frauds.