Indeed, grief is not the clear melancholy the young believe it. It is like a siege in a tropical city. The skin dries and the throat parches as thoug… - Rebecca West

A city that had learned to make good bread had learned to make good cake also. A city that built itself up by good sense and industry had formed a powerful secondary intention of elegance.

So I went out alone into a soft day, with the dispelled winter lurking above in high dark clouds under which there ran quick fresh currents of air, and broken shafts of insistent sunshine that spread a grey clarity of light in which every colour showed sharp and strong.:

Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which life can be poured and lifted to the lips and be tasted. If one’s own existence has no form, if its events do not come handily to mind and disclose their significance, we feel about ourselves as if we were reading a bad book.