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

The audience is a very curious animal. It is shrewd rather than intelligent. Its mental capacity is less than that of its most intellectual members.

But I am not sure it would contain any short stories. For the short story is a minor art, and it must content itself with moving, exciting and amusing the reader. ...I do not think that there is any (short story) that will give the reader that thrill, that rapture, that fruitful energy which great art can produce.

I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It's illimitable. It's such a happy life. There's only one thing like it, when you're up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you. You're intoxicated by the boundless space.

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.

Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.