In a happy marriage there is a continuous dense magnetic sense of communication.

A death is the most terrible of facts.

The notion that one can liberate another soul from captivity is an illusion of the very young.

Freedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.

One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.

I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.

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.