Let the past abolish the past when -- and if -- it can substitute something better.

A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune

What a writer's obituary should read - he wrote the books, then he died.

It is the writer's privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.

Well, Bud," he said, looking at me, "I'll be damned if you don't go to a lot of trouble to have your fun. Kidnapping, then fighting. What do you do on your holidays? Burn houses?

...and you don't even have to sleep alone, you don't even have to sleep at all; and so, all you have to do is show the stick to the dog now and then and say, 'Thank God for nothing.'

Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met.