At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.

Pity wraps the student of the past in an ambrosial cloud, and washes his limbs with eternal youth.

Oxford is Oxford: not a mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than to love one another.

England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.

How few writers can prostitute all their powers!

Like all her friends, I miss her greatly...But...I am sure there is no case for lamentation...Virginia Woolf got through an immense amount of work, she gave acute pleasure in new ways, she pushed the light of the English language a little further against darkness. Those are facts.

Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes.