People who carry a musical soul about them are, I think, more receptive than others. They smile more readily. One feels in them a pleasant propensity toward the lesser sins, a pleasing readiness also to admit the possibility that on occasion they may be in the wrong--they may be mistaken.

Artists often think they are going to die before their time. They seem to possess a heightened sense of the passing of the hours.

Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.

History is, in its essence, exciting; to present it as dull is, to my mind, stark and unforgivable misrepresentation.

There is a marvelous turn and trick to British arrogance; its apparent unconsciousness makes it twice as effectual.

If art has a purpose, it is to interpret life, reproduce it in fresh visions.

What the writer needs is an empty day ahead.