[A novel by Henry James] is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently place, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.

The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling.

Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.

New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled the humiliating question arises 'Why then are you not taking part in them?

In all ages, far back into prehistory, we find human beings have painted and adorned themselves.

What really matters is what you do with what you have.

The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice