You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.
People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are.
I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell: their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance.
You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
The great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Boulevard St. Germain.