There comes a moment when the things one has written, even a traveler's memories, stand up and demand a justification. They require an explanation. They query, 'Who am I? What is my name? Why am I here?

Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way.

For in our family an experience was not finished, not truly experienced, unless written down or shared with another.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.

I think one must do the thing -- whatever it is (and it changes from time to time) -- that unites you to the flowing stream of the world. At any price, one must do it first. Otherwise one can do nothing, nothing at all. One is out of touch, out of grace.

Frenchwomen just never look ungroomed, do they?