August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.

A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason.

The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.

It's frightfully important for a writer to be his age, not to be younger or older than he is. One might ask, "What should I write at the age of sixty-four," but never, "What should I write in 1940."

Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature.

The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists