The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

A true friend stabs you in the front.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.