Optimism and self-pity are the positive and negative poles of modern cowardice.

Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.

The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post.

It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific.

Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.

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

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