For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in a state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale.

Unless a man becomes the enemy of an evil, he will not even become its slave but rather its champion.

A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.

The center of every man's existence is a dream.

Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative.

A man cannot deserve adventures; he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs.

Architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable because it is so difficult to get rid of.