“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.

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

I feel like there’s too many paintings left unpainted that I just don’t want to take the time away.

[You have to be] willing to be changed by the person you’re listening to, where you’re not just waiting for a pause so you can say your thing, but you’re actually letting them have an effect on you if they can.

We can no longer let the threat of an early frost send a chill of fear throughout a large portion of our workforce.

I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup.

We might just as well let the rest of it go, join the party, and dance our hearts out.

You know, he’s a little bit sometimes outside the box, but you’ve got to let him be who he is.

Let us say in passing that since (philosophical) remedies are often worse than the malady, our age.

let us call it thus, is considered to be archaic or old-fashioned, as though in a way there existed no other definition of what it means to be modern than.