The city overwhelmed our expectations. The Kiplingesque grandeur of Waterloo Station, the Eliotic despondency of the brick row in Chelsea : the Dickensian nightmare of fog and sweating pavement and besmirched cornices.

If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some…