In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles.

I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.

Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.

You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.

Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger.

By an image we hold on to our lost treasures, but it is the wrenching loss that forms the image, composes, binds the bouquet.

A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up.

If you are truly in love with this world and your life, then you will lose the sense of angst.

Your lips are the only stimulant I need.

In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.

You'll make mistakes because it's impossible to know what is or isn't a mistake until it's made.

Hodie mihi cras tibi, said the inscription. Sic transit gloria mundi. My turn today, yours tomorrow. And thus passes away the glory of the world.

I want to be a good human being.

You must create your own world. I am responsible for my world.

Periodontal bacteria can easily slip into the bloodstream and cause infection elsewhere in the body.

I have wisdom of a 60-year-old. Also it takes a lot for me to respect a person, so when a person has a body of work behind him, it draws my respect.

The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.