Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror.

What sex is, we don't know, but it must be some sort of fire. For it always communicates a sense of warmth, of glow. And when this glow becomes a pure shine, then we feel the sense of beauty. We all have the fire of sex slumbering or burning inside us. If we live to be ninety, it is still there. Or, if it dies, we become one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world.

Nobody knows you. You don't know yourself. And I, who am half in love with you, What am I in love with? My own imaginings?

[U]nless a woman is held, by man, safe within the bounds of belief, she becomes inevitably a destructive force.

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.

Sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them.

I've never seen a wild thing feel sorry for itself.