A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance.

Eating reveals the characteristic grossness of the human race and also the in-built failure of its satisfactions. We arrive eager, we stuff ourselves and we go away depressed and disappointed and probably feeling a bit queasy into the bargain. It's an image of the déçu in human existence. A greedy start and a stupefied finish. Waiters, who are constantly observing this cycle, must be the most disillusioned of men.

until I have been able to bury my head so deep in dear London that I can forget that I have ever been away I am inconsolable.

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.

The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait.

We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central.