When we think of cruelty, we must try to remember the stupidity, the envy, the frustration from which it has arisen.

Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?

If certain critics and poetasters had their way, 'Ordinary Piety' and its child, Dullness, would be the masters of poetry.

Said the Sun to the Moon-'When you are but a lonely white crone, And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood, Remember only this of our hopeless love That never till Time is done Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one

The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.

What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear.

I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.