It displeases me to have some creature think that he can foresee and profit from my desire, automatically adapting himself to what he supposes to be my taste.

Of all our games, love's play is the only one which threatens to unsettle the soul...

Tout bonheur est un chef-d'oeuvre: la moindre erreur le fausse, la moindre hésitation l'altère, la moindre lourder le dépare, la moindre sottise l'abêtit.

Happiness is a masterpiece: the slightest error compromises it, the slightest hesitation undermines it, the slightest excess corrupts it, the slightest vulgarity defiles it.

Attianus had been right in his conjectures: the virgin gold of respect would be too soft without some alloy of fear.

Of all our games, love's play is the only one which threatens to unsettle the soul, and is also the only one in which the player has to abandon himself to the body's ecstasy.

I was willing to yield to nostalgia, that melancholy residue of desire.

All forms of dire poverty and brutality were things to forbid as insults to the fair body of mankind, every injustice a false note to avoid in the harmony of the spheres.

Overhead shone the great star of the constellation of Lyra, destined to be the polar star for men who will live tens of thousands of years after we have ceased to be.

Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when the presume to anticipate custom.

I'd gotten high enough to fly through time.

GOD IS YOUR THOUGHTS

Opinion is the death of knowledge.

I never did. I only prepared to win the next day.

My father was right. Unfortunately, he died before I could tell him.

I was a runaway girl from France who married an American and moved to New York City. Im not sure I would have continued as an artist had I remained in Paris because of the family setup.

To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle.

Human beings have a tendency to push away unwanted pain, but my experience is that when I give my consent to it, it delivers its gift and moves on.

Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.

War is a dangerous teacher and physical victory leads often to a moral defeat.