He regarded life as a rather odd club of which he had accidentally become a member and from which one could be expelled without reasons having to be supplied. He had already decided to leave the club if the meetings should become all too boring. But how boring is boring?

She had nothing to do all day ... but did it with the greatest possible speed.

I have never cared much for people. Most of them are cowards, conformists, muddleheads, moneygrubbers, and they infect each other.

Through men ... you learn how the world is. Through women you learn what it is.

The world is a never-ending cross-reference.

As far as he could see, the world was moving, in an orderly capitalist fashion, toward a logical, perhaps provisional, perhaps permanent, end.

I am a hindrance to the world, and the world is a hindrance to me.