Our natural egoism leads us to judge people by their relations to ourselves. We want them to be certain things to us, and for us that is what they are; because the rest of them is no good to us, we ignore it.

Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.

The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so, and by the manipulation of his plot, he can engage the reader's attention so that he does not perceive the violence that has been done to him.

Just as the painter thinks with his brush and paints the novelist thinks with his story.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.