No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces on me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool