The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also with scented assassins, salad-eaters who murder on milk.

Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.

Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character; it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.

The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.

Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.

All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.