Biography
"Americans (I, I’m afraid, among them) go around carelessly assuming they’re tolerant the way they go around carelessly saying, "You ought to be in pictures." But in the clinches, they turn out to be tolerant about as often as they turn out to be Clark Gable."
"The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality."
"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."
"Living in England is curing me with almost alarming rapidity of being shy. Even with the Olympians, there is no need to worry about appearing stupid, because it takes a great deal to produce ennui in an Englishman and if you do, he only takes it as convincing proof that you are well-bred."
"The real nature of an ethic is that it does not become an ethic unless and until it goes into action."
"Some persons talk simply because they think sound is more manageable than silence."
"Whatever the rest of the world thinks of the English gentleman the English lady regards him apprehensively as something between God and a goat and equally formidable on both scores."
"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings they gradually begin to seem mild harmless rather engaging little things not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."