Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don't you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.

The best argument is an undeniably good book.

A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth." But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.

De Tocqueville considered the impulse toward well-being as one of the strongest impulses of a democratic society. He can't be blamed for underestimating the destructive powers generated by this same impulse.

A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it is harder to find out how he feels.