A child is an adult temporarily enduring conditions which exclude the possibility of happiness.

A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige throughbeing mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.

Embraces do not matter; they merely indicate the will to love and may as well be followed by defeat as victory. But disregard means that now there needs to be no straining of the eyes, no stretching forth of the hands, no pressing of the lips, because theirs is such a union that they are no longer aware of the division of their flesh.

Sex, which ought to be an incident of life, is the obsession of the well-fed world.

Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.

There is no escape from mystery. It is the character of our being.

Like all bad drivers, he [Henry Andrews] thought he was the best driver in the world...