In Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have resulted—Balder, Persephone—but [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.

When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.

It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness.

At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.

Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form.

Only a struggle twists sentimentality and lust together into love.

I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.