One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame, we have killed off so much real shame as well.
My mother made a brilliant impression upon my childhood life. She shone for me like the evening star.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
It is better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything.
When you're 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you're 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you're 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.
Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.
I probably not as likely to say what's on my mind, and I think most people aren't. It's not something I would want to always be doing. So that's why I'm not a politician.
I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.
Whoever perseveres will be crowned.