No one in this country has any root anywhere; we don't live in America, we board here, we are like spiders that run over the surface of the water.

Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side.

The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes.

Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright.

Never forget that it is we New Yorkers and New Englanders who have the monopoly of whatever oxygen there is in the American continent.

Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.