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.

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

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.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

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

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.