Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.

It is difficult to make a reputation, but is even more difficult seriously to mar a reputation once properly made --- so faithful is the public.

The only way to write a great book is to write it with the eyes of a child who sees things for the first time.

All wrong doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.

The war years count double. Things and people not actively in use age twice as fast.

The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living.

The makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. If you have formed...literary taste...your life will be one long ecstasy of denying that the world is a dull place.