All fates are ‘worse than death’.

Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums who find prison so soul-destroying.

It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up.

Suffering is none the less acute and much more lasting when it is put into words.

Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.

That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.

Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you.