What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen.

The anguished suspense of watching the lips you hunger for, framing the words, the death sentence, of sheer triteness!

How ungenerously in later life we disclaim the virtuous moods of our youth, living in retrospect long, summer days of unreflecting dissipation.

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.

But in the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. No one would think of making an after-dinner speech without the help of poetry. It used to be the classics, now it’s lyric verse.

I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence.

I am annoyed to find myself continually described by people whom I have never set eyes on as bad-tempered.