Suffering is none the less acute and much more lasting when it is put into words.

All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.

"What war?" said the Prime Minister sharply. "No one has said anything to me about a war. I really think I should have been told. I'll be damned," he said defiantly, "if they shall have a war without consulting me. What's a cabinet for, if there's not more mutual confidence than that? What do they want a war for anyway?"

It is no longer possible to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor [group think] of the age and not go flopping along. By doing this he helps us to question and reassess our past, present and future situations, our assumptions and our options.

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified.