There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh.

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.

No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

If love disappear forever, a veil of sadness, falls over the valley of dried tears.

A counter to a jab is a left hook. What’s the counter to prejudice?

I want to work on respecting individuals' dignity. Equal rights, that's where my heart is. That means equal rights and benefits, and that's what we need.

My life is not my own business.

Optimists are happier in life for a reason.

The greatest spiritual blessing comes from helping another.

One favourite find of mine has to be a 1980s black dinner jacket that I wear as a dress.

I cannot believe there is a god who punishes and rewards, for I see honest folk unlucky, and rogues unlucky.

Some people think that meditation takes time away from physical accomplishment. Taken to extremes, of course, that's true. Most people, however, find that meditation creates more time than it takes.

1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it hasturned out to be an Annus Horribilis.