“When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny afterward.”

Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he is of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly.

We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series.

I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it.

Once you are married, there is nothing left for you, not even suicide.

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.

You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition.

When a torrent sweeps a man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory.

There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.

There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change.

The world is full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.

Just say yes and you’ll figure it out afterwards.

He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come, though afterwards he can come as he please.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Every actor has three versions of each scene – the one that you rehearse the night before, in your bedroom.

The one you actually get to do when you’re filming, and then the one you wish you would have done, afterward.

I would not say anything more. If I did say anything, afterwards I would always declare that you made me say it by force!

If ever I do escape, no one shall reproach me with having broken or violated my faith, not having given my word to any one, whosoever it may be.

I don’t see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.