"You don't crush literature from outside by killing writers or intimidating them or not letting them publish […]. You do better to induce them to destroy it themselves by inducing them to subordinate it to political purposes."

"Nobody, however learned, however wise, can stand in the way of regress."

"Nothing divided people more deeply than how they felt about cats."

"'Shitty things are always simple. Same as great things. Patrick Standish, in conversation.'"

"'Oh, I see,' said Jenny. 'But you're just getting these men [New Age gurus] to help you all feel better. I thought when you talked about helping people you meant other people. You know, like the blind.' 'Isn't everybody blind, in one way or another?' asked Wendy."

"Any man in the company of two women is outnumbered four to one however amiable they may be."

"While he was climbing the litter-strewn steps his left ball gave a sharp twinge, on and off like a light-switch, then again after he had sat down. Nothing. Just one of the aches and pains that come and go. No significance."

"It’s quite a problem for retired people, I do see. All of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast. All those hours with nothing to stay sober for. Or nothing to naturally stay sober during, if you see what I…We used to laugh at Malcolm’s dad, the way he used to mark up the wireless programs in Radio Times in different-coloured pencils. Never caught him listening to any of them but it was an hour taken care of."

"There isn't another other sex."

"Internally, in itself, madness is an artistic desert. Nothing of any general interest can be said about it. Like sex. But the effects it has on the world outside it can be very interesting indeed. It has no other valid literary use."

"Be glad you're fifty — and That you got there while things were nice, In a world worth looking at twice. So here's wishing you many more years, But not all that many. Cheers!"

"The rewards for being sane are not very many but knowing what's funny is one of them."

"'What's that stuff they put in ships to keep them from going all over the place?' 'What? Oh … ballast?' 'That's right. People's sex drives are like ballast, they keep them steady. It sounds wrong, but they do.'"

"If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the War, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is."

"Then, because it was every cinematic doctor's exit line, the doctor added, "I'll see myself out.""

"Old man! ’tis not so difficult to die."

"The heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old! The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns."

"The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the Night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learn'd the language of another world."

"There is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, Nor agony—nor, greater than all these, The innate tortures of that deep despair, Which is remorse without the fear of hell, But all in all sufficient to itself Would make a hell of heaven,—can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge Upon itself; there is no future pang Can deal that justice on the self—condemn'd He deals on his own soul."

"Whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself; I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator."

"Knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance."

"From my youth upwards My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers Made me a stranger."

"Think'st thou existence doth depend on time? It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine Have made my days and nights imperishable Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore Innumerable atoms; and one desert Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, But nothing rests, save carcases and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness."

"Patience! Hence—that word was made For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey; Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,— I am not of thine order."

"To be thus— Grey-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to decay— And to be thus, eternally but thus, Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years And hours—all tortured into ages—hours Which I outlive!—Ye toppling crags of ice! Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live."

"But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar."

"My mother Earth! And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. And thou, the bright eye of the universe, That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight—thou shin'st not on my heart."

"By thy cold breast and serpent smile, By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile, By that most seeming virtuous eye, By thy shut soul's hypocrisy; By the perfection of thine art Which pass'd for human thine own heart; By thy delight in others' pain, And by thy brotherhood of Cain, I call upon thee! and compel Thyself to be thy proper Hell!"

"Mont Blanc is the Monarch of mountains; They crowned him long ago, On a throne of rocks — in a robe of clouds – With a Diadem of Snow."

"Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life."

"Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself — and equal to all woes, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can decry Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory."

"Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die: The wretched gift eternity Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled."

"Titan! to whom immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless."

"And they were canopied by the blue sky, So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful That God alone was to be seen in heaven."

"A change came o'er the spirit of my dream."

"She was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all."

"And to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him."

"And both were young, and one was beautiful."

"Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die, in molding Sheridan."

"Who track the steps of glory to the grave."

"Folly loves the martyrdom of fame."

"When all of genius which can perish dies."

"And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!"

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast."

"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."

"So gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays."

"Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom. And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And feed deep thought with many a dream, And lingering pause and lightly tread; Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead! Away; we know that tears are vain, That death nor heeds nor hears distress; Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou—who tell'st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet."

"She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

"He left a corsair's name to other times, Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes."

"No words suffice the secret soul to show, For truth denies all eloquence to woe."