It is in the capacity to love, that is to SEE, that the liberation of the soul from fantasy consists. The freedom which is a proper human goal is the freedom from fantasy, that is the realism of compassion. What I have called fantasy, the proliferation of blinding self-centered aims and images, is itself a powerful system of energy, and most of what is often called 'will' or 'willing' belongs to this system. What counteracts the system is attention to reality inspired by, consisting of, love.

He was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.

Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children.

Every artist is an unhappy lover.

Freedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.

Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.