And if you had no tongue, no celebrating language, you’d do this: cross your hands at the wrist with palms facing towards you; place your crossed wrists over your heart (the middle of your chest, anyway); then move your hands outwards a short distance, and open them towards the object of your love. It’s just as eloquent as speech.

He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense.

Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.

WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.

Irony ... may be defined as what people miss.

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.

In Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.