Nothing like poetry when you lie awake at night. It keeps the old brain limber. It washes away the mud and sand that keeps on blocking up the bends. Like waves to make the pebbles dance on my old floors. And turn them into rubies and jacinths; or at any rate, good imitations.

Nothing like poetry when you lie awake at night. It keeps the old brain limber. It washes away the mud and sand that keeps on blocking up the bends. Like waves to make the pebbles dance on my old floors. And turn them into rubies and jacinths; or at any rate, good imitations.

The fear of hell, the punishment of sin, how the modern parent revolts from such teaching. Yet I will assert that far from doing us children harm, it was a sure foundation to the world of our confidence, a master girder in our palace of delight.

What is it in the actor, the stage, that casts so powerful a spell on the young imagination?

I write the big scenes first, that is, the scenes that carry the meaning of the book, the emotional experience.

People don't use their eyes. They never see a bird, they see a sparrow. They never see a tree, they see a birch. They see concepts.

It is sometimes said that toleration should be refused to the intolerant. In practice this would destroy it... The only remedy for dogmatism and lies is toleration and the greatest possible liberty of expression.