Pain is easy to write. In pain we're all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?

Happiness is never really so welcome as changelessness.

A ruling passion gives to a shelf of novels the unity of a system.

It is the same in life: sometimes it is more difficult to make a scene than to die.

To be in love is to see yourself as someone else sees you, it is to be in love with the falsified and exalted image of yourself. In love we are incapable of honor - the courageous act is no more than playing a part to an audience of two.

I’m not at peace anymore. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I want to be eating sandwiches with him. I want to be drinking with him in a bar. I’m tired and I don’t want anymore pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love. Dear God, you know I want to want Your pain, but I don’t want it now. Take it away for a while and give it me another time.

Perhaps the comparison is closer to the Chinese cook who leaves hardly any part of a duck unserved.