There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
James Branch Cabell
People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.
James Branch Cabell
Time changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of irony, and, therefore, why shouldn't I have changed a trifle?
James Branch Cabell
Good and evil keep very exact accounts... and the face of every man is their ledger.
James Branch Cabell
I take it that I must be the eternal playfellow of time. For piety and common-sense and death are rightfully time's toys; and it is with these three that I divert myself.
James Branch Cabell
Life is very marvelous ... and to the wonders of the earth there is no end appointed.
James Branch Cabell
I have followed after the truth, across this windy planet upon which every person is nourished by one or another lie.
James Branch Cabell
I am content. While my shrewd fellows rode about the world to seek and to attain power and wisdom, I have elected, as and unpractical realist, to follow after beauty.
James Branch Cabell
The man was not merely very human; he was humanity. And I reflected that it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.
James Branch Cabell
The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills and as immortal.
James Branch Cabell
They tell me that truth lies somewhere at the bottom of a well, and at virtually the door of our home is a most notable if long dried well. Our location is thus quite favorable, if we but keep patience.
James Branch Cabell