"Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long"
"Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth"
"My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror"
"Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable"
"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are"
"The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger"
"The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties"
"The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency"
"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit"
"We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person"
"The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind"
"The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill"
"It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection"
"She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit"
"Writing is the supreme solace"
"When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character"
"When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right"
"What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories"
"You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism"
