Reformers who are obsessed with purity and cannot see that their obsession is impure.

A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.

Naked I came into the world, naked I shall go out of it! And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its colour.

One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

Do you remember Italy?