A Haydn symphony had a meaning for the social group that listened to it. A Mahler symphony had a meaning for the man who composed it. Here is the difference between the classical and romantic attitudes to art.

To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.

But, brothers, this biting of their toe-nails over what is the CAUSE of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchick. They don't go into what is the cause of GOODNESS, so why of the other shop?

The trouble began with Forster. After him it was considered ungentlemanly to write more than five or six novels.

You don't say, 'I've done it!' You come, with a kind of horrible desperation, to realize that this will do.

What critics often ask for is the impossible, though this may be a salutary means of extending the borders of art.

He said it was artificial respiration, but now I find I am to have his child.