How dreadful it is that because of our wills we can never love anything without messing it around! We couldn’t even love a tree, a stone even; for sooner or later we should be pruning the tree or chipping a bit off the stone.

... Rembrandt is not a painter at all. He is a creator, who creates his beings, three dimensional living beings, on a two-dimensional flat surface which acts as a mute, and enforces silence on them.

Spring is strictly sentimental, self-regarding; but I burn more careless in the autumn bonfire.

I seem to use this word 'kind' very frequently. When one is unhappy or anxious it is a quality one dwells on.

Oh, I am all for singing. If I had had children I should have hounded them into choirs & choral societies, and if they weren't good enough for that, I would have sent them out, to sing in the streets.

To think of losing is to lose already.

Of all damnable offenses preaching prudence to the young is the most damnable.