Here I am,' I thought, 'back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here, where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity.

All fates are ‘worse than death’.

Properly understood, style is not a seductive decoration added to a functional structure; it is of the essence of a work of art. The necessary elements of style are lucidity, elegance, and individuality; these three qualities combine to form a preservative which ensures the nearest approximation to permanence in the fugitive art of letters.

I never can understand how two men can write a book together; to me that's like three people getting together to have a baby.

The languor of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost!

If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.

Port is not for the very young, the vain and the active. It is the comfort of age and the companion of the scholar and the philosopher