...all cynicism masks a failure to cope.

Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want.

I am infinitely strange to myself.

I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren't ashamed of being dull and little.

Our knowledge of what the richer than ourselves possess, and the poor do not, has never been more widespread. Therefore, envy, which is wanting what others have, and jealousy, which is not wanting others to have what one has, have never been more widespread.

In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters.

Content is a word unknown to life; it is also a word unknown to man.