Gratitude, as Dorothy Parker once observed, is "the meanest and most sniveling attribute in the world." You know what she means: it is tiresome to be grateful to someone. If somebody has done you a kindness, the kindest things that that somebody who has done you a kindness can do is to get out of the way, disappear, so that you don't have to be grateful to him, tied up hand and foot. Gratitude is a "cold" virtue, by which I mean that we do not enjoy being grateful because it places us in a relationship of obligation.
— Peter J. Gomes, Dorothy Parker, Strength for the Journey by Peter J. Gomes