"All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."
"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
"At 50, everyone has the face he deserves."
"To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle."
"If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them."
"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."