A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.
I wish people weren't so set on being themselves, when that means being a bastard.
Love affairs are for emotional sprinters; the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners.
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.
This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.
Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.
This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.
If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get.
It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way
One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.
Money, it is often said, does not bring happiness; it must be added, however, that it makes it possible to support unhappiness with exemplary fortitude.
A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
I was afraid and did not know what I feared, which is the worst kind of fear.
Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.
To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.
All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children....
Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity.
On the whole, we treat the Devil shamefully, and the worse we treat Him the more He laughs at us.
I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them.
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.
God, youth is a terrible time! So much feeling and so little notion of how to handle it!
You're all mad for words. Words are just farts from a lot of fools who have swallowed too many books. Give me things!
No action is ever lost - nothing we do is without result. It's obvious, of course, but how many people ever really believe it, or act as if it were so?
...one's family is made up of supporting players in one's personal drama. One never supposes that they starred in some possibly gaudy and certainly deeply felt show of their own.
