Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore.

Memory is a paradise out of which fate cannot drive us.

The child is small, and he includes the man; the brain is narrow, and it harbours thought; the eye is but a point, and it covers leagues

We must have done something very wicked before we were born, or else we must be going to be very happy indeed when we are dead, for God to let this life have all the tortures of expiation and all the sorrows of an ordeal.

We are not allowed to have hearts, under penalty of being hooted down.

Women sometimes allow you to be unfaithful to their love; they never allow you to wound their self-esteem.

Love without esteem cannot go far or reach high. It is an angel with only one wing.