Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front--

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.

Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.