A week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves.

In the middle classes the gifted son of a family is always the poorest -- usually a writer or artist with no sense for speculation -- and in a family of peasants, where the average comfort is just over penury, the gifted son sinks also, and is soon a tramp on the roadside.

A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, for he will be going out on a day when he shouldn't.

At first I threw my weight upon my heels, as one does naturally in a boot, and was a good deal bruised, but after a few hours I learned the natural walk of man, and could follow my guide in any portion of the island.

Words, particularly in a play, should have the texture of a crisp, autumn apple.

A translation is no translation unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it.

I'm a good scholar when it comes to reading but a blotting kind of writer when you give me a pen.