He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.

In our hurried world too little value is attached to the part of the connoisseur and dilettante.

It is so easy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be

...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.

We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?

Through this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity... Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives there was doubtless a real past, yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo.

The value of books is proportionate to what may be called their plasticity -- their quality of being all things to all men, of being diversely moulded by the impact of fresh forms of thought.