Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.

'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'

Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.

A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.

Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.

There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, ''Did you get an erection?'' If the answer is ''Yes'' from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.