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

Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.

All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn.

We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

He was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.

Nothing is more beautifully and acceptably self-assertive than good singing.

Eating reveals the characteristic grossness of the human race and also the in-built failure of its satisfactions. We arrive eager, we stuff ourselves and we go away depressed and disappointed and probably feeling a bit queasy into the bargain. It's an image of the déçu in human existence. A greedy start and a stupefied finish. Waiters, who are constantly observing this cycle, must be the most disillusioned of men.