“I'm a cynical idealist.”

“I'm a cynical idealist.' He paused and wondered if that meant anything.”

“Sometimes when you're around I've been tempted to kiss you suddenly and tell you that you were just an idealistic boy with a lot of caste nonsense in his head.”

“They always believe that 'things are in a bad way now,' but they 'haven't any faith in these idealists.' One minute they call Wilson 'just a dreamer, not practical'- a year later they rail at him for making his dreams realities. They haven't clear logical ideas on one single subject except a sturdy, stolid opposition to all change. They don't think uneducated people should be highly paid, but they won't see that if they don't pay the uneducated people their children are going to be uneducated too, and we're going round and round in a circle. That- is the great middle class.”

“Sometimes I don't know whether I'm real or whether I'm a character in one of my novels.”

“I'm paralyzed with happiness”

“I feared so-you're sentimental. You're not like me. I'm a romantic little materialist.""I'm not sentimental-I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last-the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't.”