I wanted to understand pain and the human condition, which is full of pain and regret and sadness - and some happiness, if you're lucky.

How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.

To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain.

Mortality defines the human condition.

It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.