A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one.

There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers.

It is better to sit in appreciative contemplation of a world in which beauty is eternally supported on a foundation of ugliness: cut out the support, and beauty will sink from sight.

I believe that love cannot be bought except with love.

And their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels.

I know people who are so immersed in road maps that they never see the countryside they pass through, and others who, having traced a route, are held to it as though held by flanged wheels to rails.