Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes.

The hungry and the homeless don't care about liberty any more than they care about cultural heritage. To pretend that they do care is cant.

People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness.

How few writers can prostitute all their powers!

The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty.

Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand!

Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch.