The novel is the highest form of human expression so far attained. Why? Because it is so incapable of the absolute.

Necessary, forever necessary, to burn out false shames and smelt the heaviest ore of the body into purity.

The mind has no existence by itself; it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.

There is the unknown and the unknowable which propounds all creation. This we cannot love , we can only accept it as a term of our own limitation and ratification. We can only know that from the unknown, profound desires enter in upon us, and that the fulfilling of these desires is the fulfilling of creation.

Thought is a man in his wholeness, wholly attending.

I am only half there when I am ill, and so there is only half a man to suffer. To suffer in one's whole self is so great a violation, that it is not to be endured.

The real tragedy of England, as I see it, is the tragedy of ugliness. The country is so lovely: the man-made England is so vile.