We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born. We are constantly remarking on the fact that things are done well by people other than ourselves. "The Japanese are a remarkable little people," we say, as if we were doing them a favor. "He is an Arab, but you ought to hear him play the zither." Why "but"?

The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy Roman Empire in 800.

There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes and those who do not.

It must be a source of great chagrin to those in charge to think of so many people being able to stick a stamp on a letter and drop it in a mail box without any trouble or suffering at all. They are probably working on a system this very minute, trying to devise some way in which the public can be made to fill out a blank, stand in line, consult some underling who will refer him to a superior, and then be made to black up with burned cork before they can mail a letter.

I don't trust a bank that would lend money to such a poor risk.