 A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. |
| If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual. |
| To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. |
| I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me. |
| I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker. |
| No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English. |
| A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life. Topics: Childhood |
| The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task. |
| What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us. |
| Pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. |
| Only a fool expects to be happy all the time. |
| The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer. |
| Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion. |
| You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery. |
| The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. |
| May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery. |
| Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons. |
| There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity. |
| Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year. |
| Students today are a pretty solemn lot. One of the really notable achievements of the twentieth century has been to make the young old before their time. |
