For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay.

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

A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.

Dying is the most hellishly boresome experience in the world! Particularly when it entails dying of 'natural causes'.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.