Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.

I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.

In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

The audience is not the least important actor in the play and if it will not do its allotted share the play falls to pieces.