[On Jane Austen:] To believe her limited in range because she was harmonious in method is as sensible as to imagine that when the Atlantic Ocean is as smooth as a mill-pond it shrinks to the size of a mill-pond.

The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.

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

Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

The earth itself is slightly resistant to routine.

It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

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