If a man lives to any considerable age, it can not be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation.
There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change.
The bourgeoisie's weapon is starvation. If as a writer or artist you run counter to their narrow notions they simplyand silently withdraw your means of subsistence. I sometimes wonder how many people of talent are executed in this way every year.
A man met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked. "I am weeping for my sins," said the lad. "You must have little to do," said the man. The next day, they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why do you weep now?" asked the man. "I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad. "I thought it would come to that," said the man.
The ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room.
The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature.
...those little people, my brownies, who do one half of my work for me while I am fast asleep, and in all human likelihood do the rest for me as well, when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do for myself.