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.

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.

and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.

Love is not always blind and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love.

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.