Vanity is a static thing. It puts it faith in what it has, and is easily wounded. Pride is active, and satisfied only with what it can do, hence accustomed not to feel small stings.

Tennis belongs to the individualistic past - a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.

It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence.

Maxims in times of danger are useless, experience is incommunicable. The knotted strands of life, desire, assumptions, and moral codes cannot be unsnarled; they can only be cut, which is what happens when an air raid occurs, with a silencing fortissimo like the finale of a Beethoven symphony.

Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces.

The book, like the bicycle, is a perfect form.

Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.