it is always difficult to impress the ignorant.

People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment.

The most sumptuous experience of ingestion is in-between: remembering the last bite and looking forward to the next one.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

But keeping secrets is a discipline. I never use to think of myself as a good liar, but after having had some practice I had adopted the prevaricator's credo that one doesn't so much fabricate a lie as marry it. A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help. By contrast, my lie needed me as much as I needed it, and so demanded the constancy of wedlock: Till death do us part.

...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

We are not attracted to people because they are virtuous. In fact, there's something a little creepy about people who are too good. There is a big draw to people who are successful at breaking the rules. That means we end up admiring a lot of people that we think we shouldn't.