Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own natures. Their right hands are in conflict with their left. Psychotics, and it is those who commit purposeless crimes and prefer death to life, are at war with their environment. Right and left hands strike against the womb that carries them.

A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

She did not suddenly start being disagreeable this afternoon, she was so good at it, she had evidently practised whatever are the scales and arpeggios of rudeness every day of her life.

There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.

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.

I had a glorious father, I had no father at all.

... there has never been a period in history when there have been necessary killings which has not been instantly followed by a period when there have been unnecessary killings.