The cliché is dead poetry. English, being the language of an imaginative race, abounds in clichés, so that English literature is always in danger of being poisoned by its own secretions.

We confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.

Poets and painters are outside the class system, or rather they constitute a special class of their own, like the circus people and the Gypsies.

The cliché is dead poetry. English, being the language of an imaginative race, abounds in clichés, so that English literature is always in danger of being poisoned by its own secretions.

Middle age snuffs out more talent than even wars or sudden death.

Intellectuals are people who believe that ideas are of more importance than values. That is to say, their own ideas and other people's values.

When I write a page that reads badly I know that it is myself who has written it. When it reads well it has come through from somewhere else.