“The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.”

Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.

Sometimes I think too much fuss is made about marriage. Century after century of carnal embracement and we’re still no nearer to understanding one another.

The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.

When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.

Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.

But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.

Life is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a place.

At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?

Don’t be mysterious; there isn’t the time.

You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish – not sit intending on a chair.

I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.

There’s never any great risk as long as you have money.

[On her mother, who died when Hutton was 4:] I hardly remember her, but I have missed her all my life.

The Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died.

Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.

Don’t let what other people think decide who you are.

I never saw my grandfather because he had died before I was born, but I have good memories of my grandmother and of how she could play the piano at the old house.

Nobody ever died of discomfort, yet living in the name of comfort has killed more ideas, more opportunities, more actions, and more growth than everything else combined. Comfort kills!

He died to make you holy. You are not your own.

We ought to be living as if Jesus died yesterday, rose this morning, and is coming back this afternoon.