This, my first [bicycle] had an intrinsic beauty. And it opened for me an era of all but flying, which roads emptily crossing theairy, gold-gorsy Common enhanced. Nothing since has equalled that birdlike freedom.

nothing is more restful than conformity.

the process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind.

nobody ever dies of an indignity.

Silence sat in the taxi, as though a stranger had got in.

[My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet.

First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object clear of the everyday, over the rut of living, making him all looks, silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context.