One of the uses of poetry - one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances, ... or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night.

The chestnut's proud, and the lilac's pretty, The poplar's gentle and tall, But the plane tree's kind to the poor dull city - I love him best of all.

Ladylike is the beastliest word there is, I think. If a girl isn't a lady, it isn't worth while to be only like one, she'd better let it alone and be a free and happy bounder.

It is curious that nearly all the great fortunes are made by turning beautiful things into ugly ones. Making beauty out of ugliness is very ill-paid work.

Time is, as you are probably aware, merely a convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time.

Then suddenly Jack was a changed boy. Something wonderful had happened to him, and it had made him different. It sometimes happened to people that they see or hear something quite wonderful and then they are never altogether the same again.

When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.