67 Quotes by William Dean Howells

It's astonishing how well the worse reason looks when you try to make it appear the better.

That's what makes me really think that women can never amount to anything in art. They keep all their appointments, and fulfil all their duties just as if they didn't know anything about art.

As it was now evident that the future was to be one of renunciation, of self-forgetting, an oblivion tinged with bitterness, he formlessly reasoned in favor of reconsidering his resolution against Fulkerson's offer.

I haven't done anything--yet.

How strange it (the earthquake) must all have seemed to them, here where they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could happen to others, but not to them. That is the way!

She liked the words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.

I am yours, for time and eternity--time and eternity.

I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and every cost.

Each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world.