on behalf of the author

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

For only those who have slipped and fallen know the vicissitudes of the way.

The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed.
In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts.

<...> one of those middle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies, but are thoroughly disliked by their friends.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

In nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its place.

... silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

They either slay the man, or themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

Jonathan Scagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

They can't tell so much about you if you got your eyes closed.

It is personalities, not principles, that move the age.

Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars.
I would bring myself down to his level.
I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties.
And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.

Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part.