"The man writes with such genuine passion for the books he's discussing. With so many critics you feel they're writing so people will say they're good critics."

"Feign then what's by a decent tact believed And act that state is only so conceived, And build an edifice of form For house where phantoms may keep warm."

"All those large dreams by which men long live well Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell."

"The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own."

"To produce pure proletarian art the artist must be at one with the worker; this is impossible, not for political reasons, but because the artist never is at one with any public."

"The waste even in a fortunate life, the isolation even of a life rich in intimacy, cannot but be felt deeply, and is the central feeling of tragedy. And anything of value must accept this because it must not prostitute itself; its strength is to be prepared to waste itself, if it does not get its opportunity."

"It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange. The more things happen to you the more you can't Tell or remember even what they were.The contradictions cover such a range. The talk would talk and go so far aslant. You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there."

"Liberal hopefulness Regards death as a mere border to an improving picture."

"Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about death Making death their ideal basis for different ideals. The Communists however disapprove of death Except when practical."

"Shall I make it clear, boys, for all to apprehend, Those that will not hear, boys, waiting for the end, Knowing it is near, boys, trying to pretend, Sitting in cold fear, boys, waiting for the end?"

"Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills."

"Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills."

"But as to risings, I can tell you why. It is on contradiction that they grow. It seemed the best thing to be up and go. Up was the heartening and the strong reply The heart of standing is we cannot fly."

"Hours before dawn we were woken by the quake. My house was on a cliff. The thing could take Bookloads off shelves, break bottles in a row. Then the long pause and then the bigger shake. It seemed the best thing to be up and go."

"An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful....any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language."

"Life involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis."

"Your rights reach down where all owners meet, in Hell's Pointed exclusive conclave, at earth’s centre (Your spun farm's root still on that axis dwells); And up, through galaxies, a growing sector."

"Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men."

"Twixt devil and deep sea, man hacks his caves; Birth, death; one, many; what is true, and seems; Earth's vast hot iron, cold space's empty waves."

"It is the pain, it is the pain, endures. Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through. Poise of my hands reminded me of yours."

"Ripeness is all; her in her cooling planet Revere; do not presume to think her wasted. Project her no projectile, plan nor man it; Gods cool in turn, by the sun long outlasted."

"Being everything, let us admit that is to be something, Or give ourselves the benefit of the doubt; Let us offer our pinch of dust all to this God, And grant his reign over the entire building."

"Attending there let us absorb the cultures of nations And dissolve into our judgement all their codes. Then, being clogged with a natural hesitation (People are continually asking one the way out), Let us stand here and admit that we have no road."

"There is a supreme God in the ethnological section; ... His smooth wood creeps with all the creeds of the world."

"It is far easier to learn science first and philosophy later than the other way round!"

"On the side of physics, there were a few key figures in Oxford who realized, in all probability unlike the majority of their colleagues in the physics department, that physics without interpretation is only part of the story, and that theories like quantum mechanics need careful foundational reflection."