Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.

You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.

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.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.