What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country.

Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

If you always do "just enough" you'll never have more than enough.

Music without soul is a sound but sound with a soul is music

Story is more akin to the lines on your palm. No matter what your fortuneteller claims, the lines are not maps of your future. They are side effects of the flexion of the hand.

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

The UN wasn't created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell.

I want very much to save what works and is good about the Affordable Care Act.

We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.

For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.

I'm not interested in doing the same kind of picture over and over again. I pose problems for myself. Sometimes they are aesthetic problems and sometimes they are logistical problems.

Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.