Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.

Only mediocre people are at the best all the time.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.