And I sort of frowned about that, thinking. 'You felt ill this afternoon,' he said, 'because you're getting better. When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all.

There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.

It'll be your own torture," he said, serious. "I hope to God it'll torture you to madness.

The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it.

Bath twice a day to be really clean, once a day to be passably clean, once a week to avoid being a public menace.

How wicked, my brothers, innocent milk must always seem to me now.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.