Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.

If a writer disbelieves what he is writing, then he can hardly expect his reader to believe it.

We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.

You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.

To arrange a library is to practice in a quiet and modest way the art of criticism.

He constructed a vast labyrinthine of periods, made impassable by the piling-up of clauses upon clauses-clauses in which oversight and bad grammar seemed manifestations of disdain.

The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men.