... when the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They were at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients.

Woman too commonly commits the sin of self-sacrifice whereby she consents to be sequestered in the home, without intellectual stimulus, so that the tranquil flame of her unspoiled soul should radiate purity and nobility upon an indefinitely extended family.

the bad is more easily perceived than the good. A fresh lobster does not give such pleasure to the consumer as a stale one will give him pain.

a good oyster cannot please the palate as acutely as a bad one can revolt it, and a good oyster cannot make him who eats it live for ever though a bad one can make him dead for ever.

There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

Time spent in a casino is time given to death, a foretaste of the hour when one's flesh will be diverted to the purposes of the worm and not of the will.