Adulthood is not an age, but a stage of knowledge of self.

The practise of an art is essential to the whole man, not because of what art is but because of what art does to the artist.

The ordinary man is the curse of civilization.

It is not only species of animal that die out, but whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did.

To despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.

The diary will really try and tell people who you are and what you were. The alternative is writing nothing, or creating a totally lifeless, as it is leafless, garden.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.