His style has the desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship.

They [the English] have a special word, "civil," for what is elsewhere merely ordinary politeness.

At 60 the sexual preoccupation, when it hits you, seems sometimes sharper, as if it were an elderly malady, like gout.

Every work of art is a trick by which the artist manipulates appearances.

The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another.

In times of disorder and stress, the fanatics play a prominent role; in times of peace, the critics. Both are shot after the revolution.

One didn't really believe till one saw it demonstrated that giving oneself up completely to art, to emotion, to enjoyment, without planning for the future or counting the cost, produced dreadful disabilities and bankruptcies later.