To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own - this is happiness.

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats.

Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people.

A novelist who writes nothing for 10 years finds his reputation rising. Because I keep on producing books they say there must be something wrong with this fellow.

When I was young there was no respect for the young, and now that I am old there is no respect for the old. I missed out coming and going.

Western man is schizophrenic.

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age, I missed it coming and going.

If we openly declare what is wrong with us, what is our deepest need, then perhaps the death and despair will by degrees disappear.

The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.

The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.

In plain words: now that Britain has told the world that she has the H-Bomb she should announce as early as possible that she has done with it, that she proposes to reject in all circumstances nuclear warfare.

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

We pay when old for the excesses of youth.

I know only two words of American slang, 'swell' and 'lousy'. I think 'swell' is lousy, but 'lousy' is swell.

To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own - this is happiness.

Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in colour and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.

Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes.

Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy.

If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write.

Living in an age of advertisement we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day but it changes and withers at a touch.

A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.

From heav'nly thoughts all true delight doth spring.

I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking round with astonishing delight, beheld the ample plains, the beauteous tracts below.

There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.

Books should to one of these fours ends conduce, for wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

It is also very engaging - and a delight - to go back to Bangladesh as often as I can, which is not only my old home, but also where some of my closest friends and collaborators live and work.

There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer.

We help people to begin truly healthful diets, and it is absolutely wonderful to see, not only their success, but also their delight at their ability to break old habits and feel really healthy for a change.

For Pleasure, Delight, Peace and Felicity live in method and temperance.

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.

She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.

It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth, in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear!

The applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight.

Not only is there no need of an intermediary through whom He would want you to speak to Him, but He finds His delight in having you treat with Him personally and in all confidence.

Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

Intelligence is nothing without delight.

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.