New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious. - Ford Madox Ford

He had a great deal to think of if he was to get the hang of – he was certainly not going to interfere with – the world and having to listen to conversations that were mostly moral apophthegms had tired him. He got too many at too short intervals.

It's the quality of harmony, sir. The quality of being in harmony with you own soul. God having given you your own soul you are then in harmony with Heaven.

No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano.