The doctor who applied a stethoscope to my heart was not satisfied. I was told to get my papers with the clerk in the outer hall. I was medically rejected.

I must be like the princess who felt the pea through seven mattresses; each book is a pea.

A man who writes for a living does not have to go anywhere in particular, and he could rarely afford to if he wanted.

A whim, a passing mood, readily induces the novelist to move hearth and home elsewhere. He can always plead work as an excuse to get him out of the clutches of bothersome hosts.

Perhaps that suspicion of fraud enhances the flavor.

They managed to find time... to tell me that there was no chance of my being accepted for service and that really I should be surprised to still be alive.