If they lost the incredible conviction that they can change their wives or husbands, marriage would collapse at once.

All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.

The truth is that the phenomena of artistic production are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so far from an accurate scientific and psychological knowledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced to accept them as empirical facts; and empirical and non-explanatory names are the names that suit them best.

If it's to be, it's up to me.

Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each others fur.

People have a right to be shocked; the mention of unmentionable things is a kind of participation in them.

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?