Books are a habit-forming drug.
Very few of us are what we seem.
Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.
I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.
The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask.
As life goes on it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself everyday.
It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.
When the fact doesn’t meet the theory then let go the theory.
But surely for everything you have to love you have to pay some price.
The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself – and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.
Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time thewish to kill-though not the will to kill.
Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.
I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.
It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.
I married an archeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.
An appreciative listener is always stimulating.