Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

But then people don't read literature in order to understand; they read it because they want to re-live the feelings and sensations which they found exciting in the past. Art can be a lot of things; but in actual practice, most of it is merely the mental equivalent of alcohol and cantharides.

If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time.

If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

By comparison with a night-club, churches are positively gay.