relations

I am a part of all that I have met.

I wish everybody would go back into the closet.

When you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for this reason that I don't mix much in literary circles because I know from experience that once I have met and spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to feel any intellectual brutality towards him even when I feel I ought to - like the Labour M.P.s who get patted on the back by dukes and are lost forever more.

With three or more people there is something bold in the air: direct things get said which would frighten two people alone and conscious of each inch of their nearness to one another. To be three is to be in public - you feel safe.

Each of us keeps battened down inside himself a sort of lunatic giant -impossible socially but full-scale. It's the knockings and batterings we sometimes hear in each other that keep our intercourse from utter banality.

At the heart of our friendly or purely social relations there lurks a hostility momentarily cured but recurring in fits and starts.

Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation a mental or physical barter to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.

It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world.

Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times. The dancers don't even look at one another. They are just a lot of isolated individuals jiggling in a kind of self-hypnosis and dancing with others only to remind themselves that we are not completely alone in this world.

A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world: everyone you meet is your mirror.

The wisest man I have ever known once said to me: 'Nine out of every ten people improve on acquaintance ' and I have found his words true.

Acquaintance n: a person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.

I respect only those who resist me but cannot tolerate them.

It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.

I was born modest not all over but in spots.

A modest man is usually admired - if people ever hear of him.