Venice is the worlds unconscious: a misers glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by a saint who is really a prince who has just slain a dragon.

The passion for fact in a raw state is a peculiarity of the novelist.

The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has all too much a professional air.

The relation between life and literature - a final antimony - is one of mutual plagiarism.

The present can try to bury the past, an operation that is most atrocious when it is most successful.

This grossly advertised wonder [Venice], this gold idol with clay feet, this trompe-l'oeil, this painted deception, this cliche-what intelligent iconoclast could fail to experience a destructive impulse in her presence?

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.