"Did not Jupiter transforme himselfe into the shape of Amphitrio to embrace Alcmæna; into the form of a swan to enjoy Leda; into a Bull to beguile Io; into a showre of gold to win Danae?"

"That honourable estate of Matrimony, which was sanctified in Paradise, allowed of the Patriarches, hallowed of the olde Prophets, and commended of al persons."

"He reckoneth without his Hostesse. Love knoweth no lawes."

"The soft droppes of rain perce the hard marble; many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks."

"It seems to me (said she) that you are in some brown study."

"I cast before the Moone."

"The finest edge is made with the blunt whetstone."

"Though the Camomill, the more it is trodden and pressed downe the more it spreadeth."

"Be valyaunt, but not too venturous. Let thy attyre bee comely, but not costly."

"As lyke as one pease is to another."

"A clere conscience is a sure carde."

"There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire."

"How at heaven's gates she claps her wings, The morne not waking til she sings."

"Cupid and my Campaspe play'd At cards for kisses—Cupid paid: He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, His mother's doves, and team of sparrows; Loses them too; then down he throws The coral of his lips, the rose Growing one's cheek (but none knows how); With these, the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin: All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes— She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love! has she done this for thee? What shall, alas! become of me?"

"Fish and guests in three days are stale."

"A Rose is sweeter in the budde than full blowne."

"[I]t's human to choose any sort of path into the future rather than face the long road back to what you've left behind."

"The real trouble with liars […] was that there could never be any guarantee against their occasionally telling the truth."

"We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it."

"From an outsider's point of view, a naked woman out of doors is either a sun-worshipper or a rape victim; a man in the same state is either a sexual criminal or a plain lunatic."

"I told myself that I could soon start to relish the state of being alone […], only to find as usual that I was stuck with myself.[…] Two's company, which is bad enough in all conscience, but one's a crowd."

"Should you revisit us Stay a little longer And get to know the place... On local life we trust The resident witness Not the royal tourist."

"I was a shit when I met you. I still am in lots of ways. But because of you I've had to give up trying to be a dedicated, full-time shit. I couldn't make it, hadn't the strength of character. Which is a pity in a way, because when you fall back into the ranks of the failed shits or amateur shits or incidental shits you start taking on responsibility for other people."

"You can't screw the rich, something in Ronnie muttered as Miss Quick got off him with quite as much alacrity as she had got on him. You have to let them screw you. Or else you leave out screwing altogether."

"He was short on the one attribute certain to meet the immediate respect of the rich — i.e. being rich — and must therefore obtrude deterrents against being buggered about."

"It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children."

"'You're still the same girl. What people do doesn't change their nature.' She shook her head.[…] 'What they do is their nature,' she said."

"Friendship includes charity. But there's no charity in sex."

"A great British prime minister once remarked that the people were divided into two nations, the rich and the poor, and in effect that these had no knowledge of each other. One might say the same, perhaps, of those who live in parts of the world where segregation by races is practised. But these barriers, or the reasons for them, belong to a part of our history which is fortunately passing away. There is one barrier, however, which no amount of progress or tolerance or legislation can ever diminish. I'm talking about the barrier between the attractive and the unattractive."

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; Girls aren't like that."

"[T]here was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones."

"Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it."

"Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad."

"A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch."

"More will mean worse."

"Thus he liv'd, and thus he dy'd like a Saint, unspotted of the World, full of Alms-deeds, full of Humility, and all the examples of vertuous life."

"George Herbert, who was the Author of the Temple or Sacred Poems and Ejaculations. (A Book, in which by declaring his own spiritual Conflicts he hath Comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposed Soul, and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts: A Book, by the frequent reading whereof, and the assistance of that Spirit that seemed to inspire the Author, the Reader may attain habits of Peace and Piety, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and Heaven: and may by still reading, still keep those sacred fires burning upon the Altar of so pure an heart, as shall free it from the anxieties of this world, and keep it fixt upon things that are above)."

"The first, that with any effectual success attempted a diversion of this foul and overflowing stream, was the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of whom I am the least; and gave the first check to a most flourishing and admired wit of his time."

"I must confess, after all that, next to Scripture Poems, there are none so savoury to me, as Mr. George Herbert’s, and Mr. George Sandys’s. I know that Cooly and others far excel Herbert in Wit and accurate composure. But (as Seneca takes with me above all his Contemporaries, because he speaketh Things by words, feelingly and seriously, like a man that is past jest, so) Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and where business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and Heaven-work make up his Books."

"A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two."

"The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken."

"The lion is not so fierce as they paint him."

"To a close-shorn sheep God gives wind by measure."