I put the words down and push them a bit.

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

To see Stephen Spender fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee.

No one is ever holy without suffering.

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

I think there's almost nothing I can't excuse except perhaps worshiping graven images. That seems to be idiotic.

Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.