'No-one is happy relatively - for a longer or shorter time. You're happy or you're not. That's all. And death has nothing to do with it - death is an accident of happiness, in that case.'

'You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters - all that matters, really - is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest - women, art, success - is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.'