Great Throughts Treasury

"A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes."

"London is a bad habit one hates to lose."

"A Status symbol is an instrument you clash when you want someone to know you are there."

"To hold the syringe gently, firmly but delicately--not to squirt, but to prod the sleeper into wakefulness with the nozzle, taking care to start no abrupt flight of fear. Only to stir a movement, to initiate a presence from such a deep dead sleep."

"Tall, black-haired, rouged, Kaiser-moustached, he cackled and screamed in weird attitudes, giggling in high soprano, hiding his little black teeth behind an exquisitely gloved hand - the 'poseur' absolute. He was said to have slept with Sarah Bernhard and vomited for a week afterwards."

"Trees are green gold."