You are quite, quite wrong if you think that ... I find your happiness painful. What matters is that happiness - the golden day - should exist in the world, not much to whom it comes. For all of us it is so transitory a thing, how could one not draw joy from its arrival?

it is better to take experience, to suffer, to love, and to remember than to walk unscathed between the fires. I've had most immunities myself - the result of an independent income combined with a personality completely devoid of sexual attractions - the two fires of poverty and passion have therefore never burned me, and I am a lesser person for my safety.

it is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.

A sense of humor is so handy, isn't it? It lets you see both sides of a question so that you never need do anything.

I advise nobody to drown sorrow in cocoa. It is bad for the figure and it does not alleviate the sorrow.

we are so little, so ignorant, so feeble an infant race crawling on a planet between immensities we haven't even begun to understand, that really we have no grounds for either congratulation or despair.

If you are rich, you have lovely cars, and jars full of flowers, and books in rows, and a wireless, and the best sort of gramophone and meringues for supper.