[B]ut he had lived in a world in which, as he said, no one who loved ideas need hunger mentally.

In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

there are lots of ways of answering a letter - and writing doesn't happen to be mine.

In the summer New York was the only place in which one could escape from New Yorkers.

The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the secret that most of your friends have lost.