Of children as of procreation -- the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable

His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death.

Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.

Dearest Charles-- I found a box of this paper at the back of a bureau so I must write to you as I am mourning for my lost innocence. It never looked like living. The doctors despaired of it from the start... I am never quite alone. Members of my family keep turning up and collecting luggage and going away again, but the white raspberries are ripe. I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits. Love or what you will. S.

Enclosing every thin man, there's a fat man demanding elbow-room.

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

I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.