In descriptions of nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture.

When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.

It is the writer's business not to accuse and not to prosecute, but to champion the guilty, once they are condemned and suffer punishment.

Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don't have a passport.

The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issuesnot from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.

When a person hasn't in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog's bark in every sound.

When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'