The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector.

The old man was dreaming about the lions.

The rich were dull and they drank too much. . . . He remembered poor Julian and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, “The very rich are different from you and me.” And how someone had said to Julian, Yes, they have more money.

The sun also rises.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.

There was a certain inner comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty toward him, although, being very shy and a throughly nice boy, he never fought except in the gym.