“Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly?”

When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably.

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.

I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat. They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it.

To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.

Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.

When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.

There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.

The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither.

I’d sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.

I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you’re ground down by convention. You can’t think as you like and you can’t act as you like. That’s because it’s a democratic nation. I expect America’s worse.

It’s no good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.

Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.