Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and god himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.
When married people don't get on they can separate, but if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can sever.
The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.
Why did you look at the sunset?' Philip answered with his mouth full: Because I was happy.
The mathematician who after seeing Phedre asked: 'Qu'est que ca prouve?' was not such a fool as he has been generally made out. No one has ever been able to explain why the Doric temple of Paestum is more beautiful than a glass of cold beer except by bringing in considerations that have nothing to do with beauty.
She was a fool and he knew it and because he loved her it had made no difference.
She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.
Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy, touches a chord, which a piece of acknowledged fiction misses. It is to touch this chord that some authors have done everything they could to give you the impression that they are telling the plain truth.
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage
People are always a little disconcerted when you don't recognize them, they are so important to themselves, it is a shock to discover of what small importance they are to others. [The human element]
Her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer.
But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and fascinating. In the same way there are certain places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which the inevitable disillusionment you experience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You had expected something wholly beautiful and you get an impression which is infinitely more complicated than any that beauty can give you. It is the weakness in the character of a great man which may make him less admirable but certainly more interesting. Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu.
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.
I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is'--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--'the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.
The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too. [The human element]
The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.
Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things...it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice; it wasn't lasciviousness; it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others.
Our wise old church...has discovered that if you will act as if you believed belief will be given to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled; if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you.
Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.
There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.
I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: