“This I say is the present moment; this is the first day of the summer holidays. This is part of the emerging monster to whom we are attached.”

“The journey is everything. Most necessary of all, but rarest good fortune, we should try to find some man of our own sort who will go with us and to whom we can say the first thing that comes into our heads. For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.”

“For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side and the future on another.”

“I cannot remember my past, my nose, or the colour of my eyes,or what my general opinion of myself is. Only in moments of emergency, at a crossing, at a kerb, the wish to preservemy body springs out and seizes me and stops me , here, beforethis omnibus. We insist, it seems, on living. Then again, indifference descends.”

“I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect, & each comes to daylight at the present moment.”

“And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!”

“Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning -" "Silver between the trees -" "Upstairs -" "In the garden -""When summer came -""In winter snowtime -"The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.”