A Mixture of Frailties

So many people get gloomy as they grow older.

“English is not a language of quantities, like Latin,” he said, over and over again, “but a language of strong and weak stresses. A faulty stress destroys the meaning and flavour of a word, and distorts the quality of a line of verse."

Under stress, you know, Jimmy, people sometimes speak wiser than they know.

You have just made the great discovery that behind every symbol there is a reality.

If you’re a fool, or if you haven’t any talent, or not enough, it will influence the special way in which you go to the devil.

Asperity: asperity is the bosom-sin of the critic.

The love which is strong as steel under one assault may crumble like ash under the breath of another.

Everybody's provincial if you put ‘em in the right spot to show it, and nobody more so than the man who won't be impressed, on principle.

Nothing, nothing whatever really stands in the way of a creative artist except lack of talent.

Terribly demanding thing, friendship. Most of us have to put up with acquaintanceship.