"I'd rather be myself," he said. "Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly."

If one's different, one's bound to be lonely. They're beastly to one.

"You do look ill! Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"
The Savage nodded.
"I ate civilization."
"What?"
"It poisoned me; I was defiled."

Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly.

One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.

Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly-they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.

When people are suspicious with you, you start being suspicious with them.

And that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you've got to do.

The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray.

What fun it would be if one didn't have to think about happiness!

Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel-and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers
or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave.