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

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

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.

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

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

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.

The cliche is dead poetry.