People who can’t be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as one part of your life starts looking up, another falls to pieces.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

I loved writing a book in which, in some ways, it’s very, very classical, and in some ways I’m breaking lots of rules about what you can do and what you can’t do.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

If a nation wants to live in peace with its neighbors, it doesn’t keep rattling the saber at them.

Rock and roll stars have it much better than writers when they’re on a tour.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

We all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don’t to make it all bearable.

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

Dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I...

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

Crime to many is not crime but simply a way of life. If laws are inconvenient, ignore them, they don’t apply to you.

So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I...

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

I lost some time once. It’s always in the last place you look for it.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

I think of myself as a very lazy author.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

Historically, more people have died of religion than cancer.

So the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out there preserving and fighting for, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, the fight for First Amendment rights in comics and, more generally, for freedom of speech.

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

I was the kind of kid whose parents would drop him off at the local town library on their way to work, and I’d go and work my way through the children’s area.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

I wanted to write something that would be a comedy in the sense of making people feel happier when they finish it than they did when began it.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they’d been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the know child.

Strategy number one is that I always, or almost always, have at least two or three different things that I’m writing at any one time.