There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh.

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.

No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

A writer who can't follow submission guidelines is like a pilot without a plane... ain't gonna get very far!

Jealousy isn't a pleasant quality, but if it isn't overdone (and if it's combined with modesty), apart from its inconvenience there's even something touching about it.

Faith is an encounter in which God takes and keeps the initiative.

My dad actually makes the best cookies. My mum is great baker, too, but doesn't share them - it's tantalising! Luckily for me though, my dad shares his!

'Don't worry about senility', my grandfather used to say.

I used to always be the young one playing without pressure, but I am just happy to be where I am and enjoying my time.

What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity?

Hillary Clinton used a private email account to conduct official state business. Experts say that if this violates any federal rules, then she . . . will still be president.

I have to go back to vinyl every once in awhile, even if my kids don't want to hear it. I'm much more likely to be listening to Wilco or the Avett Brothers.

If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men.