All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot.

Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.

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.

Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.

I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.