The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

It's immoral to steal, but you can take things.

I tend to be not my own best company. I can get a little lost when - if I don't have my work to occasionally focus me.

To speak broadly, the troubles of life as we find them are mainly traceable to the heart or the purse.

To see the outside world as the same stuff as our most secret or unknown thoughts is a fine necessity.

Love is to the soul of him who loves, what the soul is to the body which it animates.

I like to complain and do nothing to make things better.

You want a love story too? There's none to be had.

I didn't run off with the secretary. It made it seem like I had committed adultery and then ran off with a secretary, neither of which happened.

Love opens my chest, and thought returns to its confines.

The world wisely prefers happiness to wisdom.