England, where nobody ever says what they mean: and by denying feeling, kill it off stone-cold at the roots.

But there is that about well-intentioned advice that has the opposite effect of the one intended, and causes a Spanish fly of perversity to enter into the hitherto passive soul.

... the mere thought of going near a man who is not mellowly pickled, and whose breath reeks of his native fleshy self, is squeamishly unpalatable to me.

there is no gaiety as gay as the gaiety of grief.

A lot of warm vulgarity is incomparably preferable to a little bit of pinched niceness

When the desire is on for one particular person, nobody else will do.

none of what I know is out of books. ... I prefer tactual learning. Touching, on the quick of the sore nail, of present, mobile life. To toy, to gnaw, to tear: at the living element of pain. Like at a living drumstick.