One could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express in words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there?
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.
Once she knows how to read there’s only one thing you can teach her to believe in – and that is herself.
Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.
On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.
Obviously the connection between dress and war is not far to seek; your finest clothes are those that you wear as soldiers.
Now there can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea.
Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy.
Nothing shakes my opinion of a book. Nothing – nothing. Only perhaps if it’s the book of a young person – or of a friend – no, even so, I think myself infallible.
Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.
