Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them.

But nevertheless, the fact remained, it was almost impossible to dislike anyone if one looked at them.

to write a novel in the heart of London is next to an impossibility. I feel as if I were nailing a flag to the top of a mast in a raging gale.

Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions──a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard──can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness.

We seem to be riding on the top of the highest mast of the tallest ship; and yet at the same time we know that nothing of this sort matters; love is not proved thus, nor great achievements completed thus; so that we sport with the moment and preen our feathers in it lightly.

The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance of its own.

Life piles up so fast that I have no time to write out the equally fast rising mound of reflections.