When the desire is on for one particular person, nobody else will do.

There is, happily, no limit to the faith of human nature in believing what it wants to believe.

One should never go back to a place one has loved; for, however, rough the going forward is, it is better than the snuffing out-of-love return.

England, where nobody ever says what they mean: and by denying feeling, kill it off stone-cold at the roots.

So it is useless to evade reality, because it only makes it more virulent in the end. But instead, look steadfastly into the slit, pin-pointed, malignant eyes of reality: as an old-hand trainer dominates his wild beasts. Take it by the scruff of the neck, and shake the evil intent out of it; till it rattles out harmlessly, like gall bladder stones, fossilized on the floor.

But the true evil of drink lies in the disillusion: that the initial pleasure very soon evaporates, leaving a demoralizing craving for more, which is not even temporarily pleasurable. Which then leads to deterioration of the faculties of both body and mind; plus a bewildering lack of co-operation between the two.

But there is that about well-intentioned advice that has the opposite effect of the one intended, and causes a Spanish fly of perversity to enter into the hitherto passive soul.