Too much detail is apt, like any other form of extravagance, to become slightly vulgar.

Personal hatred and family affection are not incompatible; they often flourish and grow strong together.

The emptiness was intense, like the stillness in a great factory when the machinery stops running.

The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic.

From the time the Englishman's bones harden into bones at all, he makes his skeleton a flagstaff, and he early plants his feet like one who is to walk the world and the decks of all the seas.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

I have not much faith in women in fiction.... Women are so horribly subjective and they have such scorn for the healthy commonplace. When a woman writes a story of adventure, a stout sea tale, a manly battle yarn, anything without wine, women, and love, then I will begin to hope for something great from them, not before.