Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.

Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.

There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

Letting him goThere is a particular kind of suffering to be experienced when you love something greater than yourself. A tender sacrifice. Like the pained silence felt in the lost song of a mermaid

It’s easier to spew hatred, but actually watching yourself doing it is a whole different story.

Woody Allen is in his '70s and he's making movies, so I look forward to getting there.

Lynx-eyes toward our equals, and moles to ourselves. [Fr., Lynx envers nos pareils, et taupes envers nous.]

It's a truth universally acknowledged that an FBI special agent in possession of great skill and talent is likely to engage in trash talk every now and then.

This constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy.

Correction of Earlier Entry: 8/01/12We read over the shoulders of giants; books place us in dialogue not just with an author but with other readers.

Bowing to the Saudi king is not an energy policy.

I'm intrigued by all that, by religions, I'm intrigued by Jesus Christ. It's all fascinating.

My father beat me with a curtain rod when I was nine, (That was) the inspiration for Creep