Carolyn Wells Quotations

A blunder at the right moment is better than cleverness at the wrong time.

A guilty conscience is the mother of invention.

Advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive.

A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.

Youth is a silly, vapid state, Old age with fears and ills is rife, This simple boon I beg of Fate - A thousand years of Middle Life.

I am more fond of achieving than striving. My theories must prove to be facts or be discarded as worthless. My efforts must soon be crowned with success, or discontinued.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I'm just the same age I've always been.

Wall Street. - The abode of the Brokers and the Broke.

What is a magazine? A small body of Literature entirely surrounded by advertisements.

A living gale is better than a dead calm.

The wages of sin is alimony.

musicians rarely have a sense of humour, at least, about themselves.

Flirtation envies Love, and Love envies Flirtation.

Invitation is the sincerest flattery.

Circumstances alter faces.

In December people give no thought to the Past or the Future. They thing only of the Present.

Society's the mother of convention.

Contentment is the result of a limited imagination.

Where there's a will there's a detective story.

I have always hated biography, and more especially, autobiography. If biography, the writer invariably finds it necessary to plaster the subject with praises, flattery and adulation and to invest him with all the Christian graces. If autobiography, the same plan is followed, but the writer apologizes for it.

At times there is nothing so unnatural as nature.

Patriotism covers a multitude of sins.

One of the first principles of perseverance is to know when to stop persevering.

I think, for the rest of my life, I shall refrain from looking up things. It is the most ravenous time-snatcher I know. You pull one book from the shelf, which carries a hint or a reference that sends you posthaste to another book, and that to successive others. It is incredible, the number of books you hopefully open and disappointedly close, only to take down another with the same result.

... ideals, standards, aspirations,--those are chameleon words, and take color from their speakers,--often false tints. A scholarly man of my acquaintance once told me that he traveled a thousand miles into the desert to get away from the word uplift, and it was the first word he heard after he reached his destination.

All through the nineties I met people. Crowds of people. Met and met and met, until it seemed that people were born and hastily grew up, just to be met.

I hate to do what everybody else is doing. Why, only last week, on Fifth Avenue and some cross streets, I noticed that every feminine citizen of these United States wore an artificial posy on her coat or gown. I came home and ripped off every one of the really lovely refrigerator blossoms that were sewn on my own bodices.

... as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the ideal library is in the wish of its maker.

I don't care very much for literary shrines and hauntsI knew a woman in London who boasted that she had lodgings from the windows of which she could throw a stone into Carlyle's yard. And when I said, "Why throw a stone into Carlyle's yard?" she looked at me as if I were an imbecile and changed the subject.

... the subjective viewpoint is the only one to use regarding a library. Your true library is a collection of the books you want.You may have deplorably poor taste or bad judgment. Never mind. Correct those traits before you exchange your books.

I view askance a book that remains undisturbed for a year. Oughtn't it to have a ticket of leave? I think I may safely say no bookin my library remains unopened a year at a time, except my own works and Tennyson's.

There are many ways of discarding [books]. You can give them to friends,--or enemies,--or to associations or to poor Southern libraries. But the surest way is to lend them. Then they never come back to bother you.

When I feel that I'm going to write a detective story, I buy a five pound box of chocolates and a ream of paper. When the candy is all gone and the paper all used up, I know that the book is long enough.

Reward is its own virtue.

A profit is not without honor save in Boston.

Every dogma must have its day.

Take care of your common sense, and your dignity will take care of itsself

A fool and his money are soon married.

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy The books that people talk about we never can recall And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.

You wouldn't believe On All Hallow Eve What lots of fun we can make, With apples to bob, And nuts on the hob, And a ring-and-thimble cake.

I don't believe the half I hear, Nor the quarter of what I see! But I have one faith, sublime and true, That nothing can shake or slay; Each spring I firmly believe anew All the seed catalogues say!

The way to do some things is to do them.

To make a library It takes two volumes And a fire. Two volumes and a fire, And interest. The interest alone will do If logs are few.

A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity.

We should live and learn; but by the time we've learned, it's too late to live.

Almost before the big motor-car stopped, the girl sprang out.

how could advice be successful? If it turns out right, the adviser is ignored and the advisee takes all the credit. If it proves mistaken, the adviser receives all the blame.

Insistent advice may develop into interference, and interference, someone has said, is the hind hoof of the devil.

To take pride in a library kills it. Then, its motive power shifts over to the critical if admiring visitor, and apologies are necessary and acceptable and the fat is in the fire.

'Tis blessed to bestow, and yet, Could we bestow the gifts we get, And keep the ones we give away, How happy were our Christmas day!

Advice ... is a habit-forming drug. You give a dear friend a bit of advice today, and next week you find yourself advising two or three friends, and the week after, a dozen, and the week following, crowds!

Of two evils choose the prettier.

Actions lie louder than words.

I love the Christmas-tide, and yet, I notice this, each year I live; I always like the gifts I get, But how I love the gifts I give!

Happiness is the ability to recognize it.

Nonsense makes the heart grow fonder.