When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first.

Good God, what does it matter? If life is a tragedy, or a farce, or a disaster, or anything else, what do I care! Let life be what it likes. Give me a drink, that's what I want just now.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

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

Sex is the one thing you cannot really swindle; and it is the centre of the worst swindling of all, emotional swindling.... Sex lashes out against counterfeit emotion, and is ruthless, devastating against false love.

A museum is not a first-hand contact: it is an illustrated lecture. And what one wants is the actual vital touch.