“As long as I shall liveI shall always beMy Self-and no other,Just Me.”

“As long as I live I shall always be My Self - and no other, Just me.”

“I believe in the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he and they are powerless – in the long run. They – what shall we say? - have surrendered their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you can go through a sewer, and come out on the other side. A loathsome process too.”

“AwayThere is no sorrowTime heals never;No loss, betrayal,Beyond repair.Balm for the soul, then,Though grave shall severLover from lovedAnd all they share.See the sweet sun shinesThe shower is over;Flowers preen their beauty,The day how fair!Brood not too closelyOn love, on duty;Friends long forgotten May wait you whereLife with death Brings all to an issue;None will long mourn for you,Pray for you, miss you,Your place left vacant,You not there.”

“It was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches.”

“That's why I've just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There's not a book here, Lawford, that hasn't at least a glimmer of the real thing in it – just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. As for literature, and style, and all that gallimaufry, don't fear for them if your author has the ghost of a hint of genius in his making.”

“The first of these houses appeared to be occupied. The next two were vacant. Dingy curtains, soot-grey against their snowy window-sills, hung over the next. A litter of paper and refuse-abandoned by the last long gust of wind that must have come whistling round the nearer angle of the house - lay under the broken flight of steps up to a mid-Victorian porch. The small snow clinging to the bricks and to the worn and weathered cement of the wall only added to its gaunt lifelessness. ("Bad Company”