We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.

She was a fool and he knew it and because he loved her it had made no difference.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain

if you'd ever had a grown-up daughter you'd know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her - well, it's much better to pretend you're the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.

Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.

An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.

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