ironic tenderness
”«And why do you smile? You always smile at the most serious things. Ah! surely you should be sad?» If she ever knew me at all she must later have discovered that for those of us who feel deeply and who are at all conscious of the inextricable tangle of human thought there is only one response to be made - ironic tenderness and silence.”
- Lawrence Durrell, THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET (no Kindle)