“Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”

“The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”

“I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.”

“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”

“And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them ...”

“You gave me my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond human enduring-that's all.”

“One of the great things about travel is you find out how many good, kind people there are.”