To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.

What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together

The secret of happiness is to be happy already

Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. And for this serious task of imaginative discovery and self-discovery, there is and remains one perfect symbol: the printed book.

When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping from a ventilator: you don't have to have eaten it to know that it would make you throw up.