We Cannot Be Happy Until We Can

In The Dream Of Approaching Forty I Saw Myself As About To Die And Realized That I Was No Longer Myself, But A Creature Inhabited Entirely By Parasites, As A Caterpillar Is Occupied By The Grubs Of The Ichneumon Fly. Gin, Whisky, Sloth, Fear, Guilt, Tobacco, Had Made Themselves My Inquilines; Alcohol Sloshed About Within, While Tendrils Of Melon And Vine Grew Out Of Ears And Nostrils; My Mind Was A Worn Gramophone Record, My True Self Was Such A Ruin As To Seem Non-existent, And All This Had Happened In The Last Three Years.

Were I To Deduce Any System From My Feelings On Leaving Eton, It Might Be Called The Theory Of Permanent Adolescence. It Is The Theory That The Experiences Undergone By Boys At The Great Public Schools, Their Glories And Disappointments, Are So Intense As To Dominate Their Lives And To Arrest Their Development. From These It Results That The Greater Part Of The Ruling Class Remains Adolescent, School-minded, Self-conscious, Cowardly, Sentimental, And In The Last Analysis Homosexual.

There Are Many Who Dare Not Kill Themselves For Fear Of What The Neighbours Will Say.

Obesity Is A Mental State, A Disease Brought On By Boredom And Disappointment.

Miserable Orpheus Who, Turning To Lose His Eurydice, Beholds Her For The First Time As Well As The Last.