Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism. Indeed, I think it must be more agreeable, must have a more real savor, than optimism--from the way in which pessimists abandon themselves to it.

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.

A good novel rushes you forward like a skiff down a stream, and you arrive at the end, perhaps breathless, but unexhausted

One of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time.

A man of 60 has spent 20 years in bed and over three years in eating.

Women are strange and incomprehensible, a device invented by Providence to keep the wit of man well sharpened by constant employment.

Because her instinct has told her, or because she has been reliably informed, the faded virgin knows that the supreme joys are not for her; she knows by a process of the intellect; but she can feel her deprivation no more than the young mother can feel the hardship of the virgin’s lot.

I don’t read my reviews, I measure them.

You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.

If you’ve ever really been poor you remain poor at heart all your life. I’ve often walked when I could very well afford to take a taxi because I simply couldn’t bring myself to waste the shilling it would cost.