Be sure your sins will find you out, especially if you’re married and her name’s Bertha.
He knew that conscience was chiefly fear of society or fear of oneself.
I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It’s amazing how it cheers one up to shred orange and scrub the floor.
The feelings I don’t have I don’t have. The feelings I don’t have, I won’t say I have. The felings you say you have, you don’t have. The feelings you would like us both to have, we neither of us have.
The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasn’t got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.
Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved.
Give up bearing children and bear hope and love and devotion to those already born.
Good God, what does it matter? If life is a tragedy, or a farce, or a disaster, or anything else, what do I care! Let life be what it likes. Give me a drink, that’s what I want just now.
The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.
How ravished one could be without ever being touched. Ravished by dead words become obscene and dead ideas become obsessions.
She had borne so long this cruelty of belonging to him and not being claimed by him.
The human being is a most curious creature. He thinks he has got one soul, and he has got dozens.
And woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside her. With one will she wants to subject herself utterly. With the other she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.
My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.
We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free of their authority.
The true artist doesn’t substitute immorality for morality. On the contrary, he always substitutes a finer morality for a grosser one.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
The proper study of mankind is man in his relation to his deity.
The Moon! Artemis! the great goddess of the splendid past of men! Are you going to tell me she is a dead lump?