I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations--a letter written with that pen would reach the most remote corners of the world, even that unknowable place to which my father said my mother had gone and from where she would never return.

With women, the best part is the discovery. There's nothing like the first time, nothing. You don't know what life is until you undress a woman for the first time. A button at a time, like peeling a hot sweet potato on a winter's night.

It's only worth staying in bed if you're young and in good company.

Making money isn't hard in itself... What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to.

The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich.

Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity.

Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.