You don't want to be an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, so as to get a mental thrill out of them. It is allpurely secondary--and more decadent than the most hide-bound intellectualism.

He knew that conscience was chiefly fear of society or fear of oneself.

It's terrible, once you've got a man into your blood!" she said.

Now the only decent way to get something done is to get it done by somebody who quite likes doing it.

So long as you don't feel life's paltry and a miserable business, the rest doesn't matter, happiness or unhappiness.

Why, why are people all balls of bitter dust? Because they won't fall off the tree when they're ripe. They hang on to their old positions when the position is overpast, till they become infested with little worms and dry-rot.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books - repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.