Shifting problems is the first rule for a long and pleasant life.

Why do long marriages occasionally endow their inhabitants with a rare kind of equilibrium otherwise almost unknown in human relations? My guess is that the value of the moment has at last overshadowed the long history of resentments, betrayals, and boredom.

Is there any vanity greater than the vanity of those who believe themselves without it?

Once you are thought selfish, not only are you forgiven a life designed mainly to suit yourself, which in anyone else would appear monstrous, but if an impulse to generosity should by chance overpower you, you will get five times the credit of some poor selfless soul who has been oozing kindness for years.

The married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible.

Only a marriage with partners strong enough to risk divorce is strong enough to avoid it.

You can flush my ashes down the toilet, for all I care.