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

Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gaping around the camp-fire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or wooly-rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him.

Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.

I'm a holy man minus the holiness. Hand that on to your three spies, and tell them to put it in their pipes.

School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible.

... there are shadows because there are hills.

Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.