“We die of habits,deplorable oneslike merely living:finally fatal.- from "Tubes”

“Habit is as fatal to a sense of wrongdoing as to active enjoyment.”

“Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.- The Adventure of the Dying Detective”

“Habit enables us to cling to the familiar, to the self we think we know with a persistence almost irresistible. An anodyne for the terror of the unknown, it effectively keeps us from knowing, and is fatal in itself. Habit is a fiction the organism requires to dim perception. It screens us from the world, and from the true world of the self. Habit—no matter how intense the suffering it causes—is the last thing the personality will give up. It is arming itself against danger. The weapons may be more painful to use than the pain they seek to deflect. No matter. Habit allows us to live—by which Proust means it allows us to exist while it simultaneously compels us to miss Life.”

“Of course married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worse habits.”

“We are all dyingof something, always,but our degrees ofawareness differ- from "Tubes”