One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.

There was a serenity about him always that had the look of innocence, when, technically, the word was no longer applicable.

I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.

...she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.

Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day.

It is impossible for human beings, constituted as they are, both to fight and to have ideals.

Speech is an old torn net, through which the fish escape as one casts it over them.