Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.

Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.

- Why you?
- (...) I’m the best.
- Modest of you.
- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.

...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.

Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims—the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.