“Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.”

Art… does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.

It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.

I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts – facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.

The worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.

Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring – or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps – lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.

Humor brings insight and tolerance.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.

What puzzles most of us are the things which have been left in the movies rather than the things which have been taken out.

It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.

Erudition, like a bloodhound, is a charming thing when held firmly in leash, but it is not so attractive when turned loose upon a defenseless and unerudite public.

to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.

When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.

The dimensions of a work of art are seldom realized by the author until the work is accomplished. It is like a flowering dream. Ideas grow, budding silently, and there are a thousand illuminations coming day by day as the work progresses.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.

We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.