The chief requirement of the good life, is to live without any image of oneself.

Almost any tale of our doings is comic. We are bottomlessly comic to each other. Even the most adored and beloved person is comic to his lover. The novel is a comic form. Language is a comic form, and makes jokes in its sleep. God, if He existed, would laugh at His creation. Yet it is also the case that life is horrible, without metaphysical sense, wrecked by chance, pain and the close prospect of death. Out of this is born irony, our dangerous and necessary tool.

Actors are cave dwellers in a rich darkness which they love and hate.

until I have been able to bury my head so deep in dear London that I can forget that I have ever been away I am inconsolable.

Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.

Not to have been born is undoubtedly best, but sound sleep is second best.

Socrates wrote nothing. Christ wrote nothing.