“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”

Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.

One of the evils of money is that it tempts us to look at it rather than at the things that it buys.

My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is ‘Lord, I disbelieve – help thou my unbelief.

You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world.

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand.

Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend.

One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

If we act the truth the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run

For it is a serious thing to have been watched. We all radiate something curiously intimate when we believe ourselves to be alone.

Life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t’other from which . . .

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.

Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.

It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.

It was reported that Guy Ritchie has cast his wife Madonna in a small walk-on role in his new movie, Revolver. Madonna will play the part of the woman who ruins the film.

Never bet against a cat.

I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart.

I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.

The world is in balance . To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.

Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth.

We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: “Who am I?” “Why am I?” “Where am I going?” – and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable.