... 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.

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

The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods with painful sacrifices.

In these pages your imaginations, your desires, your passions are given life; Thoughts take shape that turn into dreams and our aspirations all start with a dream. Reading is where those dreams really can come true over and over again.

I had come to Yugoslavia to see what history meant in flesh and blood.

The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.

For the sake of my country, and perhaps a little for the sake of my soul, I have given up the deep peace of being in opposition.