The novelist now usurps the chair of the educator, the pulpit of the preacher, the columns of the journalist. Yet his original purpose of entertaining may have been his highest purpose. (introduction to Gladiator, Book League Monthly, 1930)

Our history is every human history; a black and gory business, with more scoundrels than wise men at the lead, and more louts than both put together to cheer and follow.

In Western society, and particularly in American society, imagination is stulified from infancy. The imaginative child is discouraged and upbraided. He is told that the process is mere dreaming, that it wastes time and leads nowhere. It is said to be "impractical." As the child grows and its imagination inevitably leads it to express unconventional ideas and to try new behavior, it is chided and even viciously punished for such signs of unorthodoxy.

Man's destiny lies half within himself, half without. To advance in either half at the expense of the other is literally insane.

I don't like people--much. This kind, I mean. And they don't like me at all, as a rule. Maybe the latter explains the former.

Material blessings, when they pay beyond the category of need, are weirdly fruitful of headache.

Not to understand the doer is to have no certain knowledge of what has been done, or why it was undertaken