I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world.
But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn’t know existed.
That day was the beginning of my friendship with Sebastian, and thus it came about, that morning in June, that I was lying beside him in the shade of the high elms watching the smoke from his lips drift up into the branches.
It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
So through a world of piety I made my way to Sebastian.
Frankly,” said the Doctor, “I am at a loss to understand my own emotions. I can think of no entertainment that fills me with greater detestation than a display of competitive athletics, none – except possibly folk dancing.
Here I am,′ I thought, ’back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here, where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity.
She was daily surprised by the things he knew and the things he did not know; both, at the time, added to his attraction.
Money is only useful when you get rid of it. It is like the odd card in Old Maid; the player who is finally with it has lost.
Beware the Anglo-Catholics. They’re all sodomites with unpleasant accents.” – Cousin Jasper.
Brenda descended the great staircase step by step through alternations of dusk and rainbow.
Instruction would be wasted on me. Just to give me the form and I’ll sign on the dotted line.
I suppose it’s something to do with her black-brained religion not to take care of the body.
There was a change in both of us. We had lost a sense of discovery which had infused the anarchy of our first year.
My father greeted me with his usual air of mild regret.
Well, you see, she was saintly but she wasn’t a saint. No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can’t really hate God either. When they want to hate him and his saints they have to find something like themselves and pretend it’s God and hate that. I suppose you think that’s all bosh.
In that dark hour I was aghast to realise that something within me, long sickening, had quietly died. I suddenly knew I had no desire or tenderness or esteem. Nothing remained except the chill bonds of law and duty an custom.
I should like to bury something precious in every place where I’ve been happy and then, when I’m old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be.