“You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.”

“Set me anything to do as a task, and it is inconceivable the desire I have to do something else.”

“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.”

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one."— George Bernard Shaw, playwright (to Winston Churchill)"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."— Churchill's response”

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

“Written over the gate here are the words 'Leave every hope behind, ye who enter.' Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral responsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.”

“If you want soldiers you must have children. You can't buy 'em in boxes, like toy soldiers.”