I Do Not Believe In Belief.

Those Who Prepared For All The Emergencies Of Life Beforehand May Equip Themselves At The Expense Of Joy.

The People I Respect Most Behave As If They Were Immortal And As If Society Was Eternal. Both Assumptions Are False: Both Of Them Must Be Accepted As True If We Are To Go On Eating And Working And Loving, And Are To Keep Open A Few Breathing Holes For The Human Spirit.

The Germans Are Called Brutal, The Spanish Cruel, The Americans Superficial, And So On; But We Are Perfide Albion, The Island Of Hypocrites, The People Who Have Built Up An Empire With A Bible In One Hand, A Pistol In The Other, And Financial Concessions In Both Pockets. Is The Charge True? I Think It Is.

If Human Nature Does Alter It Will Be Because Individuals Manage To Look At Themselves In A New Way. Here And There People - A Very Few People, But A Few Novelists Are Among Them - Are Trying To Do This. Every Institution And Vested Interest In Against Such A Search: Organized Religion, The State, The Family In Its Economic Aspect, Have Nothing To Gain, And It Is Only When Outward Prohibitions Weaken That It Can Proceed: History Conditions It To That Extent.

In The Novel We Can Know People Perfectly, And, Apart From The General Pleasure Of Reading, We Can Find Here A Compensation For Their Dimness In Life.