When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves

Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference.

One stops being a child when one realizes that telling one's trouble does not make it any better.

Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.

A work settles nothing, just as the labor of a whole generation settles nothing. Sons, and the morrow, always start afresh.

For women, history does not exist. Murasaki, Sappho, and Madame Lafayette might be their own contemporaries.

Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.