The notion that the colonel need be a better man than the private is as confused as the notion that the keystone need be stronger than the coping stone.

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran.

I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

My heart, my heart, be whole and free: Love is thine only enemy.