I was under twenty when I deliberately put it to myself one night after good conversation that there are moments when we actually touch in talk what the best writing can only come near. The curse of our book language is not so much that it keeps forever to the same set phrases . . . but that it sounds forever with the same reading tones. We must go out into the vernacular for tones that haven't been brought to book.

The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.

Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear of the imagination. That is all that can save poetry from sing-song, all that can save prose from itself.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Don't be agnostic - be something.

Fortunately, we don't need to know how bad an age is. There is something we can always be doing without reference to how good or bad the age is.