Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust.
Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction.
When ice appears out of doors, and boys seize it up while it is solid, at first they experience new pleasures. But in the end their pride will not agree to let it go, but their acquisition is not good for them if it stays in their hands. In the same way an identical desire drives lovers to act and not to act.
Before I do a play I say that I hope it's going to be for as short a time as possible but, once you do it, it is a paradoxical pleasure. One evening out of two there are five minutes of a miracle and for those five minutes you want to do it again and again. It's like a drug.
We lose the peace of years when we hunt after the rapture of moments.
Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.
The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire- soon it will go out.
The old rule about how a thing of beauty is a joy forever, in my experience, even the most beauteous thing is only a joy for about three hours, tops. After that, she'll want to tell you all about her childhood traumas. Part of meeting these jail girls is it's so sweet to look at your watch and know she'll be behind bars in half an hour.
Softly the loud peal dies, In passing winds it drowns, But breathes, like perfect joys, Tender tones.
Spangling the wave with lights as vain As pleasures in the vale of pain, That dazzle as they fade.
A thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise.
Sometimes they rose up inside her, these moments of fierce happiness, kindling out of their own substance like a spark igniting a mound of grass. It was a joy to be alive, a strange and savage joy, and she stood there in the warmth and destruction of it knowing it could not last.
Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss.
The flesh had infinity in it. I must know every inch by touch yet every inch renewed its mystery the instant my hand moved on. Delightful endless futility.
