I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. This may seem too stoical a position in these madly passionate times, but madly passionate people rarely make good on their madly passionate promises.

It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give enough.

Europeans are quarrelsome.

I was beaten up wherever I went, and people shouted at me and cursed me and threw things at me.

The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.

One should always be wary of anyone who promises that their love will last longer than a weekend.

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.