There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.

The crown of literature is poetry.

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.

It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage

Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.