A man long accustomed to admire his wife in general, seldom pauses to admire her in a particular gown or attitude, unless his attention is directed to her by the appreciative gaze of another man.

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.

[Mark Twain] is still the rough, awkward, good-natured boy who swore at the deck hands when he was three years old. Thoroughly likeable as a good fellow, but impossible as a man of letters.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance; from the winter country and homely neighbours, to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork with unimaginable possibilities.

Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.

Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.