When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.

I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things...it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.

You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever get over it. But you'll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.' What do you mean?' she smiled. Well, love isn't a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You'll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.

It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me.

The first duty of a woman is to be pretty, the second is to be well-groomed, and the third is never to contradict.

The good traveler has the gift of surprise.