The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.

Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi. (Death will come and it will have your eyes.)

Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.

No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first.

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