If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life.

Fiction is not photography, it's oil painting.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

A boy is a man in miniature, and though he may sometimes exhibit notable virtue, as well as characteristics that seem to be charming because they are childlike, he is also a schemer, self-seeker, traitor, Judas, crook, and villain - in short, a man.

The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

As the tragic writer rids us of what is petty and ignoble in our nature, so also the humorist rids us of what is cautious, calculating, and priggish--about half of our social conscience, indeed. Both of them permit us, in blessed moments of revelation, to soar above the common level of our lives.

Be sure to choose what you believe and why you believe it, because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you.