Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization.

[...] marriage is one thing, and love is another...You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques.

When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanised

The minds of different generations are as impenetrable one by the other as are the monads of Leibniz.

Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.

The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.