I had got to the dawn of the beautiful not caring, but fully aware, stage, which degenerates so imperceptibly into the doing something unpermissible stage.

I don't trust sentimentality in men; it goes with tyranny; you can't have one without the other.

The wretched Artist himself is alternatively the lowest worm that ever crawled when no fire is in him; or the loftiest God that ever sand when the fire is going.

When the desire is on for one particular person, nobody else will do.

One should never go back to a place one has loved; for, however, rough the going forward is, it is better than the snuffing out-of-love return.

there is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking.

My bitterness is not an abstract substance, it is as solid as a Christmas cake; I can cut it in slices and hand it round and there is still plenty left, for tomorrow.

England, where nobody ever says what they mean: and by denying feeling, kill it off stone-cold at the roots.

Jealousy is the lifelong noose hanging about the neck of love.

resignation, perhaps the most stifling word in the language.

I am unable, mentally incapable, of relating the dead thing, the broken body refusing to divulge why or where the occupant has gone, to the thing that was alive.

I don't think I'm destined for love.

The process of maturing is an art to be learned an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are and if it is good it is better than your youth.

I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural.

Telling the truth is the funniest joke in the world.

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. (Quoted by C.S.Lewis in Mere Christianity)

Modern thought does not offer consolations, but upsets.

A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.

Some campaigns are not worth waging if you can't win; others have to be fought on grounds of principle regardless of the chances for success.

I want to love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.

But I think frustration is hilarious. One of my missions is to bring humor into fine art. It's sacred.