Somerset Maugham ... wrote somewhere that "Nobody is any better than he ought to be."... I carried it along with me as a working p...hilosophy, but I suppose that finally I would have to take exception to the thought ... or else the universe is just an elaborate clock.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these t...erms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of bea...ns in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Hast ever ben in Omaha Where rolls the dark Missouri down,... Where four strong horses scarce can draw An empty wagon through the town? Where sand is blown from every mound To fill your eyes and ears and throat; Where all the steamboats are aground, And all the houses are afloat?... If not, take heed to what I say, You'll find it just as I have found it; And if it lies upon your way For God's sake, reader, go around it!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Take pains ... to write a neat round, plain hand, and you will find it a great convenience through life to write a small and compa...ct hand as well as a fair and legible one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at b...eing noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.... Here's looking at you, kid.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To read a newspaper for the first time is like coming into a film that has been on for an hour. Newspapers are like serials. To un...derstand them you have to take knowledge to them; the knowledge that serves best is the knowledge provided by the newspaper itself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral g...ive and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »