A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

Live as if you were eternal.

We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.

Almost all great writers have as their motif, more or less disguised, the passage from childhood to maturity, the clash between the thrill of expectation and the disillusioning knowledge of truth. 'Lost Illusion' is the undisclosed title of every novel.