"There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream; which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity."

"Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation; they were written either on parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the inventions of paper and the press have put an end to all these restraints. They have made everyone a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented into a river — expanded into a sea."

"A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart."

"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it."

"Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes; but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the fields; but they are starving in the midst of its abundance: the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden; but they feel as reptiles that infest it."

"Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin."

"Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance of the equality of the grave; which brings down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies together."

"Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate."

"We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds, and the earth with their renown. And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy, and how many shapes and forms and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and save from forgetfulness for a few short years a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and admiration."

"There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. It is only spurious pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from every touch."

"That happy age when a man can be idle with impunity."

"A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use."

"Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home."

"There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams, and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."

"My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age."

"They claim to be the first inventors of those recondite beverages, cocktail, stonefence, and sherry cobbler."

"His wife "ruled the roost," and in governing the governor, governed the province, which might thus be said to be under petticoat government."

"Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs? — No — no, ‘tis your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears."

"How convenient it would be to many of our great men and great families of doubtful origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved in obscurity, modestly announced themselves descended from a god."

"There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted."

"Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea."

"The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty."

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place."

"I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories."

"Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old."

"I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, and when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner."

"That man was so much larger than life that there's no scale by which to measure him. Most of Wilson's dialogue, if put down on paper, seems either vulgar or obscene."

"Sometimes I think it sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running."

"What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins."

"A book is never finished; it's abandoned."

"Men are not against you, they are merely for themselves."

"Everyone needs a warm personal enemy or two to keep him free of rust in the movable parts of the mind."

"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

"The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from."

"He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it's bottled."

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

"You take one thing and add it to another and you get two. Two and two is four; and five'll get you ten if you know how to work it!"

"You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini."

"When I'm caught between two evils, I generally like to take the one I never tried."

"A man in the house is worth two in the street."

"When women go wrong, men go right after them."

"It's not the men in your life that count, it's the life in your men."

"I've always had a weakness for foreign affairs."

"I only like two kinds of men, domestic and foreign."

"Oh, Beulah, Peel me a grape."

"Why don't you come up sometime and see me? … Come on up, I'll tell your fortune."

"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie."

"When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better."

"She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong."

"I've been in more laps than a napkin."