The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.

But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.

As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue.

The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?