“What a haunting, inescapable riddle life was.”

“Who said, 'All Time's delightHath she for narrow bed;Life's troubled bubble broken'? ---That's what I said.”

“We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said – it's only the impossible that's credible; whatever credible may mean...”

“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.”

“It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged.”

“Oh, pity the poor gluttonWhose troubles all beginIn struggling on and on to turnWhat's out into what's in.”

“It was this mystery, bereft now of all fear, and this beauty together that made life the endless, changing and yet changeless, thing it was. And yet mystery and loveliness alike were really only appreciable with one's legs, as it were, dangling down over into the grave.”