Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success; others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity,it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.

There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.

On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away.

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

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.

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

We are used to the actions of human beings, not to their stillness.