The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes.

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.

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

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.

Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend.

It is not that I am very intelligent, but I try to understand with love.

Love is the greatest gift

You can’t prevent undernourishment so easily, but famines you can stop with half an effort. Then the question was why don’t the governments stop them?

Occasionally it does hit me, the words on a page. And I still love doing that, as I have for the last 60 years.

I have a lot of fantasy.

I don't even have kids. But at heart, I'm a kid myself.

Diplomacy means the art of nearly deceiving all your friends, but not quite deceiving all your enemies.

In the South the war is what A.D. is elsewhere; they date from it.

Our children are not going to be just 'our children' - they are going to be other people's husbands and wives and the parents of our grandchildren.