The English have no imagination: and yet they do show imagination in two things - two only. In the evening-clothes worn by old ladies, and in their cafés.

You aren't ill: it is just that you are made of second-rate materials

And we are a people without tears. The things that moved our parents do not move us at all.

As soon as we see our dreams betrayed we realize that the intensest joys of our life have nothing to do with reality, and we are consumed with regret for the time when they glowed within us. And in this succession of hopes and regrets our life slips by.

The true defense against wealth is not a fear of wealth - of its fragility and of the vicious consequences that it can bring - the true defense against wealth is an indifference to money.

I begin to suspect that England is the most melancholy country in the world.

My tidiness, and my untidiness, are full of regret and remorse and complex feelings.