I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?

Babbitt as a book was planless; its end arrived apparently because its author had come to the end of the writing-pad, or rather, one might suspect from its length, to the end of all writing-pads then on the market.

There is no escape from mystery. It is the character of our being.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

We think in youth that our bodies are identical to ourselves and have the same interests, but discover later in life that they are heartless companions who have been accidentally yoked with us, and who are as likely as not, in our extreme sickness or old age, to treat us with less mercy than we would have received at the hands of the worst bandits.

Unhappy people are dangerous.