The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy.

sentences were used by man before words and still come with the readiness of instinct to his lips. They, and not words, are the foundations of all language. ... Your cat has no words, but it has considerable feeling for the architecture of the sentence in relation to the problem of expressing climax.

Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity.

History sometimes acts as madly as heredity, and her most unpredictable performances are often her most glorious.

I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?

Existence in itself, taken at its least miraculous, is a miracle.

There is nothing more frightening than the faces of people whom one does not know but who seem to know one, and be amused by one.