Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing, too

I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realize how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.