Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals.
The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.
I’m thoroughly convinced that editors don’t help authors.
What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers.
The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
The worst government is the most moral.
The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting Roosevelt’s foreign policy, shared in this disgrace.
Every man is his own hell.
The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor.
If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.
Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.
So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is.
The prophesying business is like writing fugues; it is fatal to every one save the man of absolute genius.
I roll out of my couch every morning with the more agreeable expectations.
Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly. He is like a watch of which the most that can be said is that its cosmetic effect is good.
Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a corporation director.
Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.
The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.
There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility.
Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.