"Happiness."
"Nonsense! Everyone can be happy if they like."
"Little Mavis, let me tell you something."
"Something dismal?"
"No one ever was, is, or can be really happy: it's a law of nature."
"I've come across people who're absolutely happy."
"Listen. Nature, for her own ends, the survival of the fittest, has arranged matters so that we're always, always striving. We think that a certain end will bring happiness, and struggle like blazes to get it, to find that satisfaction is a myth; to discover that, no sooner do we possess a thing than we weary of what was once so ardently desired, and immediately crave for something else which, if obtained, gives no more satisfaction than the last thing hungered for."
"I don't believe it for a moment. Besides, why should it be?"
"Because it's necessary to keep the species going. By constantly fighting with others for some goal, it sharpens our faculties and makes us more fitted to hold our own; if it weren't for this struggle, we should stagnate and very soon go under."
"Even if some of what you say is true, there's the pleasure of getting."