To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith

Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.

Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.

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."

The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories.

All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.

Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.