I have trouble knowing what to do at parties. Prisoners tame mice, or make rings out of spoons: I analyze people's handwriting... or else ask you to tell me what you read when you were a child. (People speak unusually well of the books of their childhood, don't they? Or is this one more life-giving illusion?) I love to see a hard eye grow soft over Little Women... And, I've found, there's no children's book so bad that I mind your having liked it: about the tastes of dead children there is no disputing.

Speaking of Books, p. 219 - Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)