We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.

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.

One road to happiness is to cultivate curiosity about everything. Not only about people but about subjects, not only about the arts but about history and foreign customs. Not only about countries and cities, but about plants and animals. Not only about lichened rocks and curious markings on the bark of trees, but about stars and atoms. Not only about your friends but about that strange labyrinth we inhabit which we call ourselves. Then, if we do that, we will never suffer a moment's boredom.

Every writer and artist wonders what in the world people of other professions can find to live for.

The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own.

Marriage is an arrangement by which two people start by getting the best out of each other and often end by getting the worst.

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.