We complain and complain, but we have lived and seen the blossom -apple, pear, cherry, plum, almond blossom – in the sun; and the best among us cannot pretend they deserve – or could contrive – anything better.
One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.
Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.
We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.
The point is to be good-to be sensitive and sincere.
I fancy that the Hell of Too Many People would occupy a respectable place in the hierarchy of infernal regions.
In a world shaped and colored more and more by politicians, the nations meet politically, and hardly any other way to settle their differences.
Our dourest parsons, who followed the nonconformist fashion of long extemporary prayers, always seemed to me to be bent on bullying God.
If there was a little room somewhere in the British Museum that contained only about twenty exhibits and good lighting, easy chairs, and a notice imploring you to smoke, I believe I should become a museum man.
Sometimes you might think the machines we worship make all the chief appointments, promoting the human beings who seem closest to them.
Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they’re growing.
Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.
Accidents, try to change them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man.
Any fool can be fussy and rid himself of energy all over the place, but a man has to have something in him before he can settle down to do nothing.
I’m in the business of providing people with secondary satisfactions. It wouldn’t have done me much good if they had all written their own plays, would it?
Production goes up and up because high pressure advertising and salesmanship constantly create new needs that must be satisfied: this is Admass- a consumer’s race with donkeys chasing an electric carrot.
What a grand, higgledy-piggledy, sensible old place Norwich is!
To put failure behind you, face up to it.
To make the most of Christmas, focus on Christ.
To love to teach is one thing, to love those you teach is another.