Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.

You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They're both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you're ground down by convention. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a democratic nation. I expect America's worse.

I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.