To me, all the juice of a book is in an unpublished manuscript, and the published book is like a dead tree - just good for cutting up and building your house with.

She was able to feel active creation going on around her in the rocks and hills, where the mystery of lust took place; and in herself, where all was yet only the night of senses and wild dreams, the work of passion going on.

Altruism is selfishness out with a pair of field glasses and imagination.

Creation of something out of nothing is the most primitive of human passions and the most optimistic

You want to be free and break new ground, speak your mind, fear no man, have the neighbours acknowledge that you're a good man; and at the same time you want to be a success, make money, join the country club, get the votes and kick the other man in the teeth and off the ladder.

Old age is perhaps life's decision about us.

The City is a machine miraculously organised for extracting gold from the seas, airs, clouds, from barren lands, holds of ships, mines, plantations, cottage hearth-stones, trees and rocks; and he, wretchedly waiting in the exterior halls, could not even get his finger on one tiny, tiny lever.