"You," she said, "are the ugliest man I ever saw." Sadly, the man answered, "Perhaps so, but I can't help that." "No," the woman allowed, "but you might stay at home."

James could do all this because he had made a bargain with himself: he wouldn't try to get killed, nor would he try to survive. He could do all this because he felt terribly sorry for the men he...

I'd hate to have a kid like me.

Do gooders don't interest me. They are the least interesting people on the planet.

He was a worn-out old man whose eyes had quit caring about anything but the odds on three-year-olds.

For many thousands of years people had looked at expensive heads of hair and thought of how much food and warmth they represented, so obviously it was a thought of no use at all, so why bother to have...

Man was made for joy and woe. Then when this we rightly know, through the world we safely go.

If humanity were capable of being satisfied, then they'd all still be living in trees and eating bugs out of one another's fur.

Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty,...

No one in their right mind would attempt to salvage it, but there were plenty of people not in their right mind. The world was full of them, more produced every minute.

Some people think emotionally more often than they think politically. Some think politically more often than they think rationally. Others never think rationally about anything at all. No judgment...

If a huge genetic gap separated us from our closest relative in the animal kingdom, we could justifiably celebrate our brilliance. We might be entitled to walk around thinking we're distant and...

And while his mother's lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant - how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.

We're humans, so we're messy

Danny would have thought it comical if it had come from any other source, on any other day, in any other country. But Curtis had come to the table with something they'd never expected, something they...

Maybe there are some things we were put on this earth not to know.

Alas, if all humans were wise and had more good will the world would be a paradise now it is mostly a hell

I eat not because I want to, not because I have to overcome anything, not to prove myself to anyone, but because it's there. I eat because that's what people do. And somehow when the food is put in...

Pretty dresses, desperate hearts.

Shane was horrid to her, always sneering at her because she was honest and simple about the things she liked. Shane hated Stella - I think it was because Stella didn't want to be a lady of quality....

Mendel hated motorists. Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.

You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.

There is always a penalty connected to the things we desire most. It is isolation.

See Monsieur Geborand, buying a pennyworth of paradise.

There is a prospect greater than the sea, and that is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.

In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer...

Good and gentle creatures do not offer a very stiff resistance, not for long, anyway.

The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

Is this what is called remorse of conscience or repentance? I do not know, and I cannot tell to this day. Perhaps this remembrance even now contains something pleasurable for my passions. No - - what...

I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in...