I have an idea that conscience impedes quite as many merits as faults, is a sort of alloy, a nickel which may prevent silver from bending but also prevents it from shining.

I have an idea that conscience impedes quite as many merits as faults, is a sort of alloy, a nickel which may prevent silver from bending but also prevents it from shining.

... possessiveness cannot accept; it cannot even strike a fair bargain; it has to confer.

Rouen shone in dark sunlight and a storm swept it away from my eyes and churned up the broad river with waves which pounced up like cats as our train drew out of the arches of the bridge.

no one wants to be praised for possibilities when one has submitted performances.

There is a period in one's life - perhaps not longer than six months - when one lives in two worlds at once ... It is the time when one has freshly learned to read. The Word, till then a denominating aspect of the Thing, has suddenly become detached from it and is perceived as a glittering entity, transparent and unseizable as a jellyfish, yet able to create an independent world that is both more recondite and more instantaneously convincing than the world one knew before.

When I die, I hope to think I have annoyed a great many people.