There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.

The nature of happiness is such that happiness retreats the more intensely you pursue it.

One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.

The attributes of God have been carefully explored. But the Devil's attributes have been left vague. I think I've found one of them. It is he who puts the prices on things." "Doesn't God put a price on things?" "No. One of his attributes is magnanimity. But the Devil is a setter of prices, and a usurer, as well. You buy from him at an agreed price, but the payments are all on time, and the interest is charged on the whole of the principal, right up to the last payment, however much of the principal you think you have paid off in the meantime.

To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.

It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way

This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.