But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and fascinating. In the same way there are certain places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which the inevitable disillusionment you experience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You had expected something wholly beautiful and you get an impression which is infinitely more complicated than any that beauty can give you. It is the weakness in the character of a great man which may make him less admirable but certainly more interesting. Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.

Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and god himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail.

I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.