It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible harmony.

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.

And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

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.

Evil is a necessary part of the order of the universe.