"The fault we admit to is seldom the fault we have, but it has a certain relationship to it, a somewhat similar shape, like that of a sleeve to an arm."

"We come late, if at all, to wine and philosophy; whiskey and action are easier."

"We work for praise, and dawdle once we have it."

"Even cowards can endure hardship; only the brave can endure suspense."

"There is always some specific moment when we become aware that our youth is gone; but, years after, we know it was much later."

"There's little enough to be said for nationalism, so let's say it and have done."

"The young are generally full of revolt, and are often pretty revolting about it."

"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."

"As we are human, we can't do what we can't do; as we're neurotic, we can't do what we can."

"Injure a businessman and he'll try to make you sorry; injure an artist and he'll try to make you immortal."

"Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway."

"When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting that we have just had one."

"Charity is a good way of reminding God that if we can do it, He can."

"Money is the best counterfeit money."

"The poor have the same basic pleasures as the rich, and the rich will always resent it."

"Money is much more exciting than anything it buys."

"If everyone gave a tenth of his worldly goods to the person he most admired, the rich would just get richer."

"When threatened, the first thing a democracy gives up is democracy."

"An artist is a socially unattractive person whom socially attractive people make money out of."

"How strange that the young should always think the world is against them when in fact that is the only time it is for them."

"The plague of government is senile delinquency."

"Sooner or later, they govern who are determined to."

"Be glad that you're greedy; the national economy would collapse if you weren't."

"Failure can get to be a rather comfortable old friend."

"The past is rich in lessons from which we would greatly profit except that the present is always so full of Special Circumstances."

"What you were sure of yesterday, you know now to be false, but what you are sure of today is absolutely true."

"We have to call it "freedom": who'd die for "a lesser tyranny"?"

"There are a handful of people whom money won't spoil, and we all count ourselves among them."

"We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others."

"Grasp your opportunities, no matter how poor your health; nothing is worse for your health than boredom."

"Throughout our lives, we see in the mirror the same innocent trusting face we have seen there since childhood."

"People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fiber called courage."

"A new wound makes all the old ones ache again."

"We are all such a waste of our potential, like three-way lamps using one-way bulbs."

"One day you are an apprentice, and everybody's pet; the next, you are coldly expected to deliver. There is never sufficient warning that the second day is coming."

"The neurotic listens to weather reports about Small Craft Warnings, and he thinks: They're talking about me."

"Age is a slowing down of everything except fear."

"It is always safe to tell people that they’re looking wonderful."

"No good neurotic finds it difficult to be both opinionated and indecisive."

"'Pull yourself together' is seldom said to anyone who can."

"Cash is the one gift everyone despises and no one turns down."

"In church, sacred music would make believers of us all—but preachers can be counted on to restore the balance."

"Children lack morality, but they also lack fake morality."

"Likely as not, the child you can do the least with will do the most to make you proud."

"Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time."

"The family unit is man's noblest device for being bored."

"The fault no child ever loses is the one he was most punished for."

"Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children."

"One of life's few really reliable pleasures: to have a family you love, and to leave them for a week."