One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.

Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life

I never could get on with representative individuals but people who existed on their own account and with whom it might therefore be possible to be friends.

The sort of poetry I seek only resides in objects Man can't touch - like England 's grass network of lanes 100 years ago, but today he can destroy them and only Lord Farrer keeps him from doing it.

Human beings have their great chance in the novel.

One has two duties - to be worried and not to be worried.

The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible to say "yesterday I was happy, today I am not.