“I seem to wish to have some importanceIn the play of time. If not,Then sad was my mother's pain, my breath, my bones,My web of nerves, my wondering brain,to be shaped and quickened with such anticipationOnly to feed the swamp of space.What is deep, as love is deep, I'll haveDeeply. What is good, as love is good,I'll have well. Then if time and spaceHave any purpose, I shall belong to it.If not, if all is a pretty fictionTo distract the cherubim and seraphimWho so continually do cry, the leastI can do is to fill the curled shell of the worldWith human deep-sea sound, and hold it toThe ear of God, until he has appetiteTo taste our salt sorrow on his lips.And so you see it might be better to die.Though, on the other hand, I admit it mightBe immensely foolish.”

“One day I shall burst my bud of calm and blossom into hysteria.”

“I am very much in love with something;What it may be I can't remember;It will come to me.That was a roundabout drive in the snow,Owing to my erratic sense of direction!”

“I've never seen a worldSo festering with damnation. I have leftRings of beer on every alehouse tableFrom the salt sea-coast across half a dozen counties,But each time I thought I was on the wayTo a faintly festive hiccupThe sight of the damned world sobered me up again.”

“Cheat? Good heavens, this is an amateur cricket match amongst leading prep schools, I'm an Englishman and a schoolmaster supposedly setting an example to his young charges. We are playing the most artistic and beautiful game ever devised. Of course I'll cunting well cheat. Now, give me my robe and put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.”

“My mother holds Bram tightly. I draw i ragged breath, the kind you take when the pain is too deep to cry, when you can;t cry because all you are is pain, and if you let some of it out, you might cease to exist.I want to do something to make this better, even though I know tha nothing can change the fact of my father gone and under ground”

“I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me.But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.”