There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?

I don't think our show's actually rude.

The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.

Your Englishman, confronted by something abnormal will always pretend that it isn't there. If he can't pretend that, he will look through the object, or round …