The two worst sins of bad taste in fiction are pornography and sentimentality. One is too much sex and the other too much sentiment.

Unadaptability is often a virtue.

Sickness is a place, ... and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow.

A working knowledge of the devil can be very well had from resisting him.

When the peacock has presented his back, the spectator will usually begin to walk around him to get a front view; but the peacock will continue to turn so that no front view is possible. The thing to do then is to stand still and wait until it pleases him to turn. When it suits him, the peacock will face you. Then you will see in a green-bronze arch around him a galaxy of gazing, haloed suns.

I am interested in making up a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way to make people see.

Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time. This was a kind of mental bubble in which he established himself when he could not bear to be a part of what was going on around him. From it he could see out and judge but in it he was safe from any kind of penetration from without. It was the only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows. His mother had never entered it but from it he could see her with absolute clarity.