The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.

We'd forgive most things if we knew the facts.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

Doing nothing, badly.

She had lost all our memories for ever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. I was losing my individuality. It was the first stage of my own death, the memories dropping off like gangrened limbs.

Suffering is not increased by numbers; one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.

The world doesn't make any heroes anymore.