“If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.”

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

“Do you know that I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world? Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance.”

“Ah, Robbie, when we are dead and buried in our porphyry tombs, and the trumpet of the Last Judgement is sounded, I shall turn and whisper to you, 'Robbie, Robbie, let us pretend we do not hear it.”

“Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.”

“In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.”

“The world seemed to me fine because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived.”