Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to please his audience.

Among the masked dandies of Edwardian comedy, Max Beerbohm is the most happily armored by a deep and almost innocent love of himself as a work of art.

The State, that cawing rookery of committees and subcommittees.

How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.

A short story is. . .frequently the celebration of character at bursting point.

The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths.