“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”

When we are not sure, we are alive.

Politics, war, marriage, crime, adultery. Everything that exists in the world has something to do with money.

Beauty is like success: we can’t love it for long.

I say that home is where there is a chair and a glass.

You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.

There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.

It’s a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.

One can’t love humanity. One can only love people.

Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.

Every monologue sooner or later becomes a discussion.

Reality in our century is not something to be faced.

It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.

Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content: the quiet mind is richer than a crown.

The truth has never been of any real value to any human being – it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

I figure that if God actually does exist, he is big enough to understand an honest difference of opinion.

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

The Romans had been able to post their laws on boards in public places, confidant that enough literate people existed to read them; far into the Middle Ages, even kings remained illiterate.

Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you.

Hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody’s fine feelings may be offended.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.

If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone.