Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.

Never presume yours is a better morality.

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

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

He's satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can't be satisfied.

Oh, she doesn't belong to anybody now,' he said, and suddenly I saw her for what she was - a piece of refuse waiting to be cleared away: if you needed a bit of hair you could take it, or trim her nails if nail trimmings had value to you. Like a saint's her bones could be divided up - if anybody required them. She was going to be burnt soon, so why shouldn't everybody have what he wanted first? What a fool I had been during three years to imagine that in any way I had possessed her. We are all possessed by nobody, not even by ourselves.