Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.

Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile.

When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character.

A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.

A crown of roses is also a crown of thorns.

Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.

Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given.