The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.

Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk.

The greatest problem with women is how to contrive that they should seem our equals

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

In the dream of approaching forty I saw myself as about to die and realized that I was no longer myself, but a creature inhabited entirely by parasites, as a caterpillar is occupied by the grubs of the ichneumon fly. Gin, whisky, sloth, fear, guilt, tobacco, had made themselves my inquilines; alcohol sloshed about within, while tendrils of melon and vine grew out of ears and nostrils; my mind was a worn gramophone record, my true self was such a ruin as to seem non-existent, and all this had happened in the last three years.

It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.