No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

I was under twenty when I deliberately put it to myself one night after good conversation that there are moments when we actually touch in talk what the best writing can only come near. The curse of our book language is not so much that it keeps forever to the same set phrases . . . but that it sounds forever with the same reading tones. We must go out into the vernacular for tones that haven't been brought to book.

Loyalty is that for the lack of which your gang will shoot you without benefit of trial by jury.

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

An idea comes as near to something for nothing as you can get.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.