God, the bitter misery that reading works into this world! Everybody knows that - everbody who IS everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rouchefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. Good for you, La Rouchefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read.

The ones I like are ‘cheque’ and ‘enclosed.’

His books are exciting and powerful and — if I may filch the word from the booksy ones — pulsing.

Art is a form of catharsis emotional release, purging, cleansing, purifying.

Telegram to a friend who had just become a mother after a prolonged pregnancy: Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you.

Hell's afloat in lover's tears.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.