From the drawing-room window I see pass almost daily an old gentleman with white hair, a firm step, broad shoulders, healthy pink skin, a sunny smile…

- W.N.P. Barbellion

The porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never paying he…

- W.N.P. Barbellion

I waste much time gaping and wondering. During a walk or in a book or in the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everythin…

- W.N.P. Barbellion

How I hate the man who talks about the 'brute creation', with an ugly emphasis on Brute. Only Christians are capable of it. As for me, I am proud of …

- W.N.P. Barbellion

An appetite for knowledge is apt to rush one off one's feet, like any other appetite if not curbed. I often stand in the in the centre of the Library…

- W.N.P. Barbellion

Suppose the hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible things are true.…

- W.N.P. Barbellion

Suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everything... To be alive is so incredible that all I can do is to lie still and merely breathe.

- W.N.P. Barbellion

Youth is an intoxication without wine, someone says. Life is an intoxication. The only sober man is the melancholiac, who, disenchanted, looks at lif…

- W.N.P. Barbellion

Sometimes I think I am going mad. I live for days in the mystery and tears of things so that the commonest object, the most familiar face- even my ow…

- W.N.P. Barbellion