Poetical feelings are a peril to scholarship. There are always poetical people ready to protest that a corrupt line is exquisite. Exquisite to whom? The Romans were foreigners writing for foreigners two millenniums ago; and for people whose gods we find quaint, whose savagery we abominate, whose private habits we don't like to talk about, but whose idea of what is exquisite is, we flatter ourselves, mysteriously identical to ours.

can only write about what bites you.

I'm vaguely embarrassed by myself sometimes.

It takes a lot of effort to be vibrant.

My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.

ROS: Why don't you go and have a look? GUIL: Pragmatism?! - is that all you have to offer?

I take every possible side.