They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.

The rich are different from us.

This is what I think now: that the natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness.

the growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humour. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third – before long the best lines cancel out – and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true

The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one's mind and still be able to function is the mark of a superior mind

A writer like me must have an utter confidence, an utter faith in his star. It's an almost mystical feeling, a feeling of nothing-can-happen-to me, nothing-can-touch-me.... I once had it. But through a series of blows, many of them my own fault, something happened to that sense of immunity and I lost my grip.

I hope you live a life you're proud of...