Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate; a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.

The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe.

A writer is in danger of allowing his talent to dull who lets more than a year go past without finding himself in his rightful place of composition, the small single unluxurious retreat of the twentieth century, the hotel bedroom.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.

Longevity is the revenge of talent upon genius.

In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together.

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.