I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I'm going to bring up my daughter so that she's free and can stand on her own feet. I´m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he's willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are.

I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

I prefer a loose woman to a selfish one and a wanton to a fool.

There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.