...literature must always be about gloom of one sort or another, on the principal that there is nothing interesting to be said about happy people.

I'd realized that in writing happiness is useless-without suffering there is no story.

There is no such thing as a cheerful poem [...] Happiness writes in water, not ink.

(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)

I've a one track mind, sir. Poverty and gloom. Never a joyous picture of mine you'll see.Always gloom. I never do a jolly picture.

“...reality’s always dull, you know...”

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a happy bunch of chuckleheads.

It is impossible for a poet to characterize his own work. From other people I gather that I am a gloomy poet, if not a tragic one.

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.

Happiness rarely leads us to intellectual adventures. Writers and artists, not to mention philosophers, are usually dissatisfied with themselves or the world.

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle.

Everybody strains after happiness, and the result is that nobody's happy.

These are all novels, all about people that never existed, the people that read them it makes them unhappy with their own lives. Makes them want to live in other ways they can never really be.