I was beginning to see that my whole life had been a flight from the possibility of unearthing the sort of man I really was. - Howard Spring

It is courteous to respect a fellow-being's right to privacy by providing him with a room of his own; but it can be torture to make him feel that that room is where he is expected to be, out of one's way.

[Swithinbank] had dreamed of this show, and here was the dream come true, because he had made it come. What had I ever dreamed of except to be tucked in under a warm blanket of safety? And what had I ever done to make even that true? Nothing.

On one of those occasions, for a variety of subjects, I had won three pounds worth of books. It was in the happy days when the volumes of the Everyman Library cost but a shilling apiece. Decorously the students walked up and received their books—one, two or three. But, with a lust for quantity, and to the devil with morocco bindings, I had staked out my claim on Everyman. On my first call, I was received with ironic cheers as I bore away a toppling pile of thirty volumes; and when, called later, I added another thirty to the store and walked back to my seat, chin firmly pressed into the topmost volume, there were roars of laughter. It was a business getting home those sixty volumes. I had taken the precaution to provide myself with plenty of string, and what is more I got on to a tram, a rare thing to do in those days.