Coffee, unless it is very good and made by somebody else, is pretty intolerable at any time.
There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.
Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.
We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.
Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.
The theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak.
Most real relationships are involuntary.
I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.
Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.
What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.
Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.
One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.
Nothing is more beautifully and acceptably self-assertive than good singing.
Most of our love is shabby stuff, but there is always a thin line of gold, the bit of pure love on which all the rest depends – and which redeems all the rest.
The notion that one can liberate another soul from captivity is an illusion of the very young.
The most interesting things are always happening behind one.
Nothing is more maddening than being questioned by the object of one’s interest about the object of hers, should that object not be you.
Words are the most subtle symbols which we possess and our human fabric depends on them.
There is nothing like the bootless solitude of those who are caged together.