To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.

The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.

Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.

If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.

He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.

Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

The biggest mistake people make is to try to lose too much weight too fast.

I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand.

To maintain good health requires good nutrition and a healthy dose of exercise.

I think the Chinese will say the hell with you and pull their money out of the United States. That's the end of our wars.

Secret to what?" "Secret to shutting you up," he said. "I just have to beat you till you're half-dead, then give you chicken soup and"--he raised his hands--"blessed silence.

So few the grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance.

The rule of surfing is never tell anyone where you go.

I have fun every day. The game is supposed to be fun.

I’d rather trust and regret than doubt and regret.

Avoiding risk is not much of a goal...whether you crawl into a hole or walk a high wire, nobody gets out of here alive. We cannot grow without challenge.