Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position.

Living is a compromise, between doing what you want and doing what other people want.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

There is no pleasing New Englanders, my dear, their soil is all rocks and their hearts are bloodless absolutes.

A writer's self-consciousness, for which he is much scorned, is really a mode of interestedness, that inevitably turns outward.

An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause.

Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth's many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more.