Conflict is the very essence of life.

[To her frequently needed plumber:] How would you like to be adopted? I'm sure it would be cheaper.

People that trust themselves a dozen miles from the city, in strange houses, with servants they don't know, needn't be surprised if they wake up some morning and find their throats cut.

[When working on a book] I have an almost complete detachment from the world I live in, a sort of armor against distraction. I talk to people, move about, appear on the surface much as usual. But later on I have only a confused memory of what has happened during that period.

From class consciousness to class hatred was but a step.

there is something shameful about the death of a play. It does not die with pity, but contempt. A book may fail, but who is there to know it? It dies and is buried, and is decently interred on the bookseller's shelf; but the play dies to laughter, to scorn and disdain.

There is a point at which curiosity becomes unbearable, when it becomes an obsession, like hunger.