Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful. - Guy de Maupassant

After all, life is never so jolly or so miserable as people seem to think.

She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d'hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their manners of petrified vestals, their indescribable toilets and a certain odor of india-rubber which makes one believe that at night they are slipped into a rubber casing.

The essence of life is the smile of round female bottoms, under the shadow of cosmic boredom.