Circa 57 Words, thoughts and deeds from Circa 57.

“Every time an old man dies it is as if a library has burnt down.”

“The imagination is in love with the feel of fact.”

“Never stop, Nataneal. As soon as an environment has become like you, or you like your environment, it is no longer any use to you. Then you must leave it.”

“Some writers hide themselves in Action, others conceal themselves in Facts.”

“[Saint-Ex] taught me to demand of a writer not just excitement and adventure, but also knowledge, seriousness and presence. Presence most of all. If the writer is not there himself in his writing, how can he demand that you should be?”

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

“Some cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers. To know such cities, to unwrap them, as it were, one has to have been born there.”

“The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above.”