Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing.

Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverend realism, says that they are all fools.

Put a higher value on yourself. Being hyper-realistic about everything is too simple a get-out.

White founts falling in the courts of the sun, / And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book, and a tired man who wants a book to read.

The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.