If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.

The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too. [The human element]

In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.

This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a prisoner and he longed for freedom. Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing; his soul leaped, for he thought he was free; he loved no longer; but in a little while, as he grew wide awake, the pain settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not cured yet.

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.

Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.