Be fond of the man who jests at his scars, if you like; but never believe he is being on the level with you.

Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.

I have always wanted to write in such a way that will make people think, Why, I've always thought that but never found the words for it.

I hated the bangs in the war: I always felt a silent war would be more tolerable.

We demand that people should be true to the pictures we have of them, no matter how repulsive those pictures may be: we prefer the true portrait (as we have conceived it), in all its homogeneity, to one with a detail added which refuses to fit in.

There are few things more disturbing than to find, in somebody we detest, a moral quality which seems to us demonstrably superior to anything we ourselves possess. It augurs not merely an unfairness on the part of creation, but a lack of artistic judgment. Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.

the most deeply moving element in the contemplation of beauty is the element of loss. We desire to hold; but the sunset melts into the night, and the secret of the painting on the wall can never be the secret of the buyer.