There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy.

It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.

A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.

This element of surprise or mystery — the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called — is of great importance in a plot. It occurs through a suspension of the time-sequence; a mystery is a pocket in time, and it occurs crudely, as in "Why did the queen die?" and more subtly in half-explained gestures and words, the true meaning of which only dawns pages ahead. Mystery is essential to a plot, and cannot be appreciated without intelligence.

Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.

Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's.

It is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the scenery, a face in the audience, an interruption of the audience on to the stage, and all our carefully planned gesture mean nothing, or mean too much.