We talked for hours. He talked and I listened. It was like wind and sunlight. It blew all the cobwebs away.

The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.' 'I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self.' He turned. 'You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy.'

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.

Man is about to be deprived of a great pole - work routine. The nightmare of capitalist society is unemployment; the nightmare of cybernetic society will be employment.

Though I like the various forms of football in the world, I don't think they begin to compare with these two great Anglo-Saxon ball games for sophisticated elegance and symbolism. Baseball and cricket are beautiful and highly stylized medieval war substitutes, chess made flesh, a mixture of proud chivalry and base - in both senses - greed. With football we are back to the monotonous clashing armor of the brontosaurus.

We can sometimes recognize the looks of a century ago on a modern face; but never those of a century to come.

That's the trouble with provincial life. Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery. No romance.