Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.

Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.

Dying is the most hellishly boresome experience in the world! Particularly when it entails dying of 'natural causes'.

And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

No action is in itself good or bad, but only such according to convention.