The profoundest distances are never geographical.

The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.

The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?

In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters.

Edith Sitwell's interest in art was largely confined to portraits of herself.

All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one.

The world began in hazard and will end in it.