There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.

I find to my astonishment that an unhappy marriage goes on being unhappy when it is over.

I have no faith in the sense of comforting beliefs which persuade me that all my troubles are blessings in disguise.

What is art? It is not decoration. It is the re-living of experience.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

Charity is an ugly trick. It is a virtue grown by the rich on the graves of the poor. Unless it is accompanied by sincere revolt against the present social system, it is a cheap moral swagger. In former times it was used as fire insurance by the rich, but now that the fear of Hell has gone along with the rest of revealed religion, it is used either to gild mean lives with nobility or as a political instrument.

Anthologies are mischievous things. Some years ago there was a rage for chemically predigested food, which was only suppressed when doctors pointed out that since human beings had been given teeth and digestive organs they had to be used or they degenerated very rapidly. Anthologies are predigested food for the brain.