I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.

It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave.

She only felt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier, the world be happier, if she could give and receive some human love.

Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there.

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

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