Optimism is the last resort of those in deep despair. There can't be any optimists in heaven.

- Alice Thomas Ellis

I have frequently thought that the dead should be buried with all their belongings. It seems weirdly perverse that their clothes should still be here…

- Alice Thomas Ellis

things are never so indescribably ghastly that they can't get worse.

- Alice Thomas Ellis

I have never had much trouble simultaneously entertaining diametrically opposed propositions, and welcome the possibility that this is not because I …

- Alice Thomas Ellis

Men were made for war. Without it they wandered greyly about, getting under the feet of the women, who were trying to organize the really important …

- Alice Thomas Ellis

The snag in being married to a person who knows more or less everything is that one gets hopelessly lazy. ... I never look things up in books because…

- Alice Thomas Ellis

Adolescence is usually typified by an unanswerable combination of innocence and insolence.

- Alice Thomas Ellis

It's when most of the guests have gone that the party really gets interesting - peering under the table and into the bath to see who's stayed and wha…

- Alice Thomas Ellis

Evil and laughter cannot co-exist.

- Alice Thomas Ellis