I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

No married man's ever made up his mind until he's heard what his wife has got to say about it.

He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.

Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

When married people don't get on they can separate, but if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can sever.