It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.

Miss Prism: Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days. Cecily: Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much. Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.