So strong is the power of superstition that even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yet still we hesitate to admit the validity of our new-found convictions.
If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.
Death, only, renders hope futile.
The more one listens to ordinary conversations the more apparent it becomes that the reasoning faculties of the brain take little part in the direction of the vocal organs.
The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue.
I got this story from someone who had no business in the telling of it.
As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people.
I loathed poverty and I would have liked to put my hands on the party who said that poverty is an honorable estate. It is an indication of inefficiency and nothing more. There is nothing honorable or fine about it.
It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness.
A warrior may change his mettle, but not his heart.
Clothes therefore, must be the insignia of the superiority of man over all other animals, for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things.
I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you – forever.
I shall have to believe even though I cannot understand.
I have discovered that the world over, unusual weather prevails at all times of the year.
We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeeming necessity for schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easily into the manner and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably within us.
Anger and hate against one we love steels our hearts, but contempt or pity leaves us silent and ashamed.
Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known.
I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later.
In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people, they have no lawyers.
I could write stories just as rotten.