Everyone had some defect, or body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick house and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in body, warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will, or craving for liquor. At that moment he felt a holy compassion for them all. …The words of the dying God crossed his memory: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

From the earliest time the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.

There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?

Beauty is also a Gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure.

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

No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.

It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.