I have no academic qualifications whatsoever.

Partly because I get such astonishingly nice fans.

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

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.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

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

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.

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...

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.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

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.

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

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...

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.

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.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

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.