I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.

I am sometimes bored by people, but never by life.

To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease.

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness.

An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.

Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered.

A typical Irish dinner would be: cream flavored with lobster, cream with bits of veal in it, green peas and cream, cream cheese, cream flavored with strawberries.

If one can't be happy, one must be amused.

The English lord marries for love, and is rather inclined to love where money is; he rarely marries in order to improve his coat of arms.

Surely a King who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory?

People in towns are always preoccupied. 'Have I missed the bus? Have I forgotten the potatoes? Can I get across the road?

Compassion for oneself requires a willingness to step OUTside your own story and see it with loving eyes

One reason we never tame the busy this beast is that we are unwilling to kill anything.

No man of high and generous spirit is ever willing to indulge in flattery; the good may feel affection for others, but will not flatter them.

No deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse judgment. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.

Anger is the common refuge of insignificance. People who feel their character to be slight, hope to give it weight by inflation: but the blown bladder at its fullest distention is still empty.

Say what you want about the deaf.

In order to have the best intelligence in the world to know who the terrorists are and where they are and what they're plotting, you've got to have the best cooperation you've ever had in the world.

I'm very, very confident in my ability to see the game - even before it's played.

True happiness is born of letting go of what is unnecessary.

The thing you don't dream about as a kid is all the peripheral stuff that comes with success.