Madness might sometimes give access to a kind of knowledge. But was not a guarantee.

A poet or novelist will invent interruptions to avoid long consecutive days at the ordained page; and of these the most pernicious are other kinds of writing -- articles, lectures, reviews, a wide correspondence.

Did you ever notice how easy it is to forgive a person any number of faults for one endearing characteristic, for a certain style, or some commitment to life - while someone with many good qualities is insupportable for a single defect if it happens to be a boring one?

At first, there is something you expect of life. Later, there is what life expects of you. By the time you realize these are the same, it can be too late for expectations. What we are being, not what we are to be. They are the same thing.

Marriage is like democracy - it doesn't really work, but it's all we've been able to come up with.

Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness.

I wasn't convinced a shop girl would know the word 'Oedipal.