The true solitary ... will feel that he is himself only when he is alone; when he is in company he will feel that he perjures himself, prostitutes himself to the exactions of others; he will feel that time spent in company is time lost; he will be conscious only of his impatience to get back to his true life.

Of course I should love to throw a toothbrush into a bag, and just go, quite vaguely, without any plans or even a real destination. It is the Wanderlust.

I like owls. I admire their intransigent spirit. I have respected them deeply ever since I met a baby owl in a wood, when it fell over dead, apparently from sheer temper, because I dared to approach it. It defied me first, and then died. I have never forgotten the horror and shame I experienced when that soft fluffy thing (towards which I had nothing but the most humanitarian motives) fell dead from rage at my feet.

how poor and disheartening a thing is experience compared with hope!

To hope for Paradise is to live in Paradise, a very different thing from actually getting there.

Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.

Travel is in sad case. It is uncomfortable, it is expensive; it is a source of annoyance to our friends, and of loneliness to ourselves.