I am unable, mentally incapable, of relating the dead thing, the broken body refusing to divulge why or where the occupant has gone, to the thing that was alive.

[On journalists:] They are as disruptive a menace to the public body: as grating turds in the intestines are to the private body.

The wretched Artist himself is alternatively the lowest worm that ever crawled when no fire is in him; or the loftiest God that ever sand when the fire is going.

There is a great gulf between the really creative person and normal people. The totally creative person does not have the rest of his life in proper proportion.

money ... is only important when you have none; and though it may not be everything, it goes a very long way towards blocking up the winter draft of age.

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

So it is useless to evade reality, because it only makes it more virulent in the end. But instead, look steadfastly into the slit, pin-pointed, malignant eyes of reality: as an old-hand trainer dominates his wild beasts. Take it by the scruff of the neck, and shake the evil intent out of it; till it rattles out harmlessly, like gall bladder stones, fossilized on the floor.