It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to under value them."

"The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment of the novelist, is that there is no limit to what he may attempt- no limit to his possible experiments, efforts, discoveries, successes."

"The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern . . . this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience."

She had an unequaled gift. . . of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.

"Ideas are, in truth, forces. Infinite, too, is the power of personality. A union of the two always makes history."