I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.

You regard it as impossible that a sinner should be struck down by the wrath of God! I do not!

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

... it's always interesting when one doesn't see. If you don't see what a thing means, you must be looking at it wrong way round.

Where do one's fears come from? Where do they shape themselves? Where do they hide before coming out into the open?

Everyone likes talking about himself. - Hercule Poirot

The past is the father of the present.