Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.

Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.

There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

Our prayers are granted as soon as we have prayed, even though the process of fulfilling our requests has not yet begun.

Generosity is the rarest of qualities in American writers.

Sometimes I feel sad, but this is not nostalgia, because I don't want time to come back.

Most of us choose our companions and surroundings to reflect ourselves.

A dentist at work in his vocation always looks down in the mouth.

Go out there and do your part to change the world. You may not change all you had hoped but the world will be better for the caring demonstrated by your effort.

If water stands motionless in a pool it grows stale and muddy, but when it moves and flows it becomes clear: so, too, man in his wanderings.

We never completely comprehend ourselves, but we can do far more than comprehend.

It is true fortitude to stand firm against All shocks of fate, when cowards faint and die In fear to suffer more calamity.

The gospel frees you from the pressure of having to fix people: your worth is located in Christ, not in their transformation.