Having started the year with some Graham Greene, the next stop on my ‘books/authors I really should have read by now’ was Huxley and his rightly-lauded Brave New World. I found it hard going to start with, but it gets better and better as it goes on.
“A man can smile and smile and be a villain.”
“One’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.”
“One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.”
“Stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
“Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness.”
“Providence takes its cue from men.”
“The tears are necessary. Don’t you remember what Othello said? ‘If after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have awakened death.'”