Henry James seems most entirely in his element, doing that is to say what everything favors his doing, when it is a question of recollection. The mellow light which swims over the past, the beauty which suffuses even the commonest little figures of that

When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook—a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases.

I'm terrified of passive acquiescence. I live in intensity.

Boredom is the legitimate kingdom of the philanthropic.

You cannot lecture on really pure poetry any more than you can talk about the ingredients of pure water-it is adulterated, methylated, sanded poetry that makes the best lectures.

Among the tortures and devestations of life is this then - our friends are not able to finish their stories.

The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.