Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and god himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people.

I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

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.