“All truths are bloody truths to me.”

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

“When somebody dies we usually need reasons for consolation, not so much to alleviate our pain as to excuse ourselves for so readily feeling consoled.”

“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! Distrust all those who talk much of their justice!”

“In a seriously intended intellectual emancipation a person's mute passions and cravings also hope to find their advantage.”

“I am all the time thinking about poetry and fiction and you.”

“... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bullyher, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.”

“Who would not spout the family teapot in order to talk with Keats for an hour about poetry, or with Jane Austen about the art of fiction?”