Who said, ‘All Time’s delightHath she for narrow bed;Life’s troubled bubble broken’? —That’s what I said.

A poor old Widow in her weedsSowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;Not too shallow, and not too deep,And down came April — drip — drip — drip.Up shone May, like gold, and soonGreen as an...

Yes, after all, this by now was his customary loneliness: there was little else he desired for the present than the hospitality of the dark.

Lear, Macbeth. Mercutio – they live on their own as it were. The newspapers are full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it. Have you ever been in a Police Court?...

Oh, pity the poor gluttonWhose troubles all beginIn struggling on and on to turnWhat’s out into what’s in.

In these days of faith-cures, and hypnotism, and telepathy, and subliminalities – why, the simple old world grows very confusing. But rarely, very rarely novel.

That’s why I’ve just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There’s not a book here, Lawford, that hasn’t at least a glimmer of the real thing...

It was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches.

When there hasn’t been anything there, nothing can be said to have vanished from the place where it has not been.(“Out Of The Deep”)

The Listeners’Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,Knocking on the moonlit door;And his horse in the silence champed the grassesOf the forest’s ferny floor.And a bird flew up out of the turret,Above the Traveller’s head:And...

It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous. Folly, heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meanness, stupidity –...

An hour’s terror is better than a lifetime of timidity.

He got out of bed and peeped through the blinds. To the east and opposite to him gardens and an apple-orchard lay, and there in strange liquid tranquility hung the morning star, and rose, rilling...

I believe in the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he and they are powerless – in the long run. They – what shall we say? – have surrendered...

Once a man strays out of the common herd, he’s more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.

Pausing on the threshold, he looked in, conscious not so much of the few familiar sticks of furniture – the trucklebed, the worn strip of Brussels carpet, the chipped blue-banded ewer and basin, the framed...

His brow is seamed with line and scar;His cheek is red and dark as wine;The fires as of a Northern starBeneath his cap of sable shine.His right hand, bared of leathern glove,Hangs open like an...

Lawford had soundlessly stolen a pace or two nearer, and by stopping forward he could, each in turn, scrutinize the little intent company sitting over his story around the lamp at the further end of...

We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all...

Thinking is like a fountain. Once it gets going at a certain pressure, well, it almost impossible to turn it off. And, my hat! what odd things come up with the water!(“Out Of The Deep”)

It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged.

Fancies were all very well for a change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality.

The time’s gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy’s all very well but after all it’s justice that clinches the bargain.

God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterwards the bruise.

Let them enjoy their Eden while they can; though there’s plenty of apples, I fear, on the tree yet, Mr Lawford.

After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front – in our...

When indeed you positively press your face, so to speak, against the crystalline window of your eyes, your mind is apt to become a perfect vacuum.(“Out Of The Deep”)

Poor sleepers should endeavor to compose themselves. Tampering with empty space, stirring up echoes in pitch-black pits of darkness is scarcely sedative.(“Out Of The Deep”)

It was this mystery, bereft now of all fear, and this beauty together that made life the endless, changing and yet changeless, thing it was. And yet mystery and loveliness alike were really only appreciable...

Tell them I came, and no one answered,That I kept my word,” he said.Never the least stir made the listeners,Though every word he spakeFell echoing through the shadowiness of the still houseFrom the one man...

Hi! handsome hunting manFire your little gun.Bang! Now the animalis dead and dumb and done.Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again,Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh, what fun!