Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.

Protest against Industrial Capitalism from one aspect or another is universal: so was the protest against the condition of European religion at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Writing itself is a bad enough trade, rightly held up to ridicule and contempt by the greater part of mankind, and especially by those who do real work, plowing, riding, sailing

When one remembers how the Catholic Church has been governed, and by whom, one realizes that it must have been divinely inspired to have survived at all.

The Devil, having nothing else to do Went off to tempt my Lady Poltagrue. My Lady, tempted by a private whim, To his extreme annoyance, tempted him.

I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.

There are few greater temptations on earth than to stay permanently at Oxford in meditation, and to read all the books in the Bodlean.