I would like [the working man] to give me back books and newspapers and theories. And I would like to give him back, in return, his old insouciance, and rich, original spontaneity and fullness of life.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

And every true artist is the salvation of every other. But only artists produce for each other the world that is fit to live in.

Behold then Septimus Dodge returning to Dodge-town victorious. Not crowned with laurel, it is true, but wreathed in lists of things he has seen and sucked dry. Seen and sucked dry, you know: Venus de Milo, the Rhine or the Coliseum: swallowed like so many clams, and left the shells.

Nothing that comes from the deep, passional soul is bad, or can be bad.

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.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul.