The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the eye and mind for symmetry, harmony and order.

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.

Only the fact that we are unaware how well our nearest know us enables us to live with them.

Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.

I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.

I'm not much interested in travelling scholarships for women - or in fact in scholarships, tout court! - they'd much better stay at home and mind the baby. Still less am I interested in scholarships for female Yids.

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