Any friend of H. L. Mencken..............

............must surely be an interesting man.  George Jean Nathan, of whom I was oblivious until coming across a quote of his yesterday, seems to qualify.  Nathan (1882-1958), both Mencken's friend and co-editor at The American Mercury, set the standard for American theatre criticism.  Read more about him here or here.  Here are a few quotes attributed to Nathan:

"All art is a kind of subconscious madness expressed in terms of sanity."

"The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth."

"The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism."

"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles."

"A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward."

"A man reserves his greatest and deepest love not for the woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy."

"An optimist is a fellow who believes a housefly is looking for a way to get out."

"I only drink to make other people seem interesting."

"Love demands infinitely less than friendship."

"It is the mark of a superior man that, left to himself, he is able endlessly to amuse, interest and entertain himself out of his personal stock of meditations, ideas, criticisms, memories, philosophy, humor and what not."

“My code of life and conduct is simply this: work hard, play to the allowable limit, disregard equally the good and bad opinion of others, never do a friend a dirty trick, eat and drink what you feel like when you feel like, never grow indignant over anything, trust to tobacco for calm and serenity, bathe twice a day . . . learn to play at least one musical instrument and then play it only in private, never allow one's self even a passing thought of death, never contradict anyone or seek to prove anything to anyone unless one gets paid for it in cold, hard coin, live the moment to the utmost of its possibilities, treat one's enemies with polite inconsideration, avoid persons who are chronically in need, and be satisfied with life always but never with one's self.”