- "when i like people immensely i never tell their names to any one. it is like surrendering a part of them. i have grown to love secrecy. it seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. the commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. when i leave town now i never tell my people where i am going. if i did, i would lose all my pleasure. it is a silly habit, i dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life." (ch. 1)
- "you seem to forget that i am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties." (ch. 1)
- "the aim of life is self-development. to realize one’s nature perfectly– that is what each of us is here for. people are afraid of themselves, nowadays. they have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. of course they are charitable. they feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. but their own souls starve, and are naked. courage has gone out of our race. perhaps we never really had it." (ch. 2)
- "to get back one’s youth, one has merely to repeat one’s follies." (ch. 3)
- "that is one of the great secrets of life. nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes." (ch. 3)
- "but you should not say the greatest romance of your life. you should say the first romance of your life. you will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. a grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. that is the one use of the idle classes of a country. don’t be afraid. there are exquisite things in store for you. this is merely the beginning." (ch. 4)
- "faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect– simply a confession of failure. faithfulness! i must analyse it some day. the passion for property is in it. there are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up." (ch. 4)
- "soul and body, body and soul– how mysterious they were! there was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. the senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? how shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! and yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? or was the body really in the soul, as giordano bruno thought? the separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also." (ch. 4)
- "you know i am not a champion of marriage. the real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. and unselfish people are colourless. they lack individuality." (ch. 6)
- "you must have a cigarette. a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. it is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. what more can one want?" (ch. 6)
- "you have spoiled the romance of my life. how little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!" (ch. 7)
- "I didn’t say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference." (ch. 10)
oct 20 2026 ∞
oct 20 2026 +