...she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn't know existed.

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.

Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.

Words should be an intense pleasure just as leather should be to a shoemaker.

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

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.