“In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.”

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.

Lovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.

The age of credulity is every age the world has ever known. Men have always turned from the ascertained, which is limited and discouraging, to the dubious, which is unlimited and full of hope for everybody.

What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?

Every true American likes to think in terms of thousands and millions. The word ‘million’ is probably the most pleasure-giving vocable in the language.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge … falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.

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

The friendships of nations, built on common interests, cannot survive the mutability of those interests.

It is because of our unassailable enthusiasm, our profound reverence for education, that we habitually demand of it the impossible. The teacher is expected to perform a choice and varied series of miracles.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.

The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out.

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.

Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

I eat the same foods almost every day. I have my favorites like Filipino beef broth, chicken soup with lots and lots of rice.

I wish I had said no, the day you asked for my number, but I was young, dumb and numb, looking for a harbor of harmony, to mend my shattered soul.

My mum had 14 pregnancies – but only four of us survived. We had a little sister born for a few days and she died. There had to be a funeral.

I was given a talent to play cricket. I don’t know why I was given it. But I was. I owe it to all those who wish it had been them to give of my best, every day.

I want to make as much money as I possibly can so that when my day comes, my mother and sister is fine. My close friends are fine. They don’t have to worry about anything ever again.

Don’t worry about the title. Worry about what you’ve got to do today, tomorrow, the next day, and that title will be waiting for you.

I’d like to take a course in writing. I’m not the best writer in the world. I’d like to write more neatly, even though people don’t send many handwritten letters these days.

Any song I have to work on longer than a day, I just leave it. It’s not gonna work. Everything that’s good is really instant.