That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.
Charming Alnaschar visions! It is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful creature besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged in these delightful daydreams ere now!
Oncoming death is terrible enough, but worse still is oncoming death with time to spare, time in which all the happiness that was yours and all the happiness that might have been yours becomes clear to you. You see with utter lucidity all that you are losing.
And happiness.. what is it, after all? Desires are a torment, aren't they? And it's clear that happiness is when there are no longer any desires, not even one... What a mistake, what a stupid prejudice it's been all these years to put a plus sign in front of happiness. Absolute happiness should of course have a minus sign, a divine minus.
I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and smiling faces.
Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impression that I did not manage to be happy.
My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy. I didn't want to cause any unhappiness now-in that way, I decided it was probably better than he wasn't here to see this, though I missed him so much at that moment the ache of it was as bad as the strange pains in my belly.
The goal of my life isn't just... to be happy.
If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side.