The audiences certainly have declined. If I go to the theatre now I find people come there to eat and smoke and talk to one another. And look like scarecrows.

There is an Easter sense in which all things are made new in the risen Christ. A tiny gleam of this is reflected in all true art.

Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.

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.

Self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad.

Its theme-- the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters-- was perhaps presumptuously large, but I make no apology for it.

The splendid thing about education is that everyone wants it. Like influenza, you can give it away without losing any of it yourself.