“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”

“I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.”

“One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. One should have lived first and then made one's philosophy to fit life...Life, facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even the most difficult of them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas, everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy?”

“How beautiful and horrible life is, Hema thought; too horrible to simply call tragic. Life is worse than tragic." p 108”

“A divided kingdom cannot defend itself from its adversaries. A divided person cannot face life in a dignified way.”

“He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.”