Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.

Like the characters in Chekhov, they have no reserves -– you learn the most intimate secrets. You get an impression of a world peopled by eccentrics, of odd professions, almost incredible stupidities, and, to balance them, amazing endurances.

Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, why should we? They talk about people and the proletariat; I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It's the same thing.

Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncans death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth?

To comfort me is like the wrong memory at the wrong place or time: if one is lonely one prefers discomfort.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance.

The trouble is I don't believe my unbelief.