All art is bad, but modern art is the worst.

A friend of mine tells me that a Beethoven symphony can solve for him a problem of conduct. I've no doubt that it does so simply by giving him a sense of the tragedy and the greatness of human destiny, which makes his personal anxieties seem small, which throws them into a new proportion.

An old mans memories, like his bones, grow sharp with age and show their true shapes.

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul -- politics does the same thing for the body.

God is a character, a real and consistent being, or He is nothing. If God did a miracle He would deny His own nature and the universe would simply blow up, vanish, become nothing.

Old men when they begin to hear the last trumpet, on the morning breeze, often have a kind of absent-minded smile; like people listening. And their smiles are just politeness.

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