“Don’t begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.”

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.

My conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it.

I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.

I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual.

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

I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.

Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.

It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?

Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.

Human relations are impossible. When they are real they are uncomfortable, and when they are comfortable they are unreal. It was for the journey into solitude that the human soul was created.

When all else fails, complicate matters

It’s a known fact that in certain contexts people’s great strengths become their epic failings.

My whole life had been designing computers I could never build.

College just didn’t even have computers for an under-curriculum when I started college.

And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own.

Weep bitterly over the dead, for he is worthy, and then comfort thyself; drive heaviness away: thou shall not do him good, but hurt thyself.

It’s kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn’t be doing it and I don’t know how to do it and I’m going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.

The hard work you put in will never fail you.