That was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.

When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.

It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.

We possess nothing certainly except the past

My children weary me. I can only see them as defective adults: feckless, destructive, frivolous, sensual, humorless.

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

If one's object is ascetic, it is far better to stay in London or Paris or New York; there is practically no extreme of heat or cold, physical risk, loneliness, hunger or thirst that cannot, with a little ingenuity, be conveniently achieved in the centres of civilization.