No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman.

Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright.

Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere.

The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.

Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.

It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese for swans.

Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means.

Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.

The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them.

Once you have a point of view all history will back you up.

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.

Writer is a miner

When finally I mustered the courage to tell a novelist friend that I was talking to editors about a biography, her reply was, 'Oh, that's okay. That's not a real book.'

Those who believe that politics and religion do not mix, understand neither.

There are places that are very draining. There are places where there is another dimensional crossover but to a dimension that is not powerful at all.

Once you compromise yourself in one way, you compromise yourself in another way. And you've just opened the door to compromise, mediocrity, settling.

Nature herself makes the wise man rich.

Inspiration is a message-in-a-bo ttle from the distant shore, a window into the other world, a tap of the muse's finger, the grace of the gods. It comes when you least expect it.

If you have no doubt in what you are about to do, you are not pushing yourself hard enough.

Every Man owes some of his time to the upbuilding of the profession to which he belongs.