The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.

The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck.

When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.

Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

No one can achieve Serenity until the glare of passion is past the meridian.

The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.