Almost everybody wore a curious limpidity of expression, like newborn babies or souls just after death. Dazed but curiously dignified.... after a criseof hysterical revulsion and tiredness, I passed beyondand became entered by a rather sublime feeling.

rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away.

The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet - when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round.

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man.

Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.

Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realise themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt.

The paradox of romantic love -- that what one possesses, one can no longer desire -- was at work.