This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.

But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the Negro and star-enameled Night?

Money and sex are forces too unruly for our reason; they can only be controlled by taboos with which we tamper at our peril.

This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.

I can't forgive my friends for dying; I don't find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.

When we say we are certain so-and-so can't possibly have done it, what we mean is that we think he very likely did.

Style is a magic wand, and turns everything to gold that it touches.