It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.

By the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but a few.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

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.

In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.

The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.

It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.