I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

I have defined the 100 per cent American as 99 per cent an idiot.

I have not wasted my life trifling with literary fools in taverns as [Samuel] Johnson did when he should have been shaking England with the thunder of his spirit.

I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.