The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills — and as immortal.

No person of quality ever remembers social restrictions save when considering how most piquantly to break them.

I have followed after the truth, across this windy planet upon which every person is nourished by one or another lie.

What is man that his welfare be considered? An ape who chatters of kinship with the archangels while he very filthily digs for groundnuts. And yet I perceive that this same man is a maimed God. He is condemned under penalty to measure eternity with an hourglass and infinity with a yardstick and what is more, he very nearly does it.

People marry through a variety of other reasons, and with varying results: but to marry for love is to invite inevitable tragedy.

I fear You and, yes, I love You: and yet I cannot believe. Why could You not let me believe, where so many believed? Or else, why could You not let me deride, as the remainder derided so noisily? O God, why could You not let me have faith? for You gave me no faith in anything, not even in nothingness. It was not fair.

While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction.