“If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.”

We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

Money never made a fool of anybody; it only shows them up.

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.

Growth is often a painful process.

Genius is the capacity of avoiding hard work.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

The average woman sees only the weak points in a strong man, and the good points in a weak one.

All wages are based primarily on productive power. Anything else would be charity.

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love…I believe in sunshine, fresh air, friendship, calm sleep, beautiful thoughts.

People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them.

Meanness is more in half-doing than in omitting acts of generosity.

To make mistakes is human, but to profit from them is divine.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion.

They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen. It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.

Its a rather pleasant change when all your life you’ve had people looking after you, to have someone to look after yourself. Only of course it has to be someone pretty hopeless to need looking after by me.

Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

Revision has its own peculiar pleasures and its own peculiar frustrations. The ground rules are already established; the characters already exist. You don’t have to bring the characters to life, but you do have to make them more convincing.

It’s what’s in *yourself* that makes you happy or unhappy.

There’s still a part of me that thinks I have to write a really good novel. I’m not trying to say I’m not happy with the novels I’ve written in the past. But it always feels to me like there’s another one that I have to write that will really say what I want to say, and really paint this world that I can see hazily in my head.

Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil – or else an absolute ignorance.