It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.

When even despair ceases to serve any creative purpose, then surely we are justified in suicide.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.

In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?

Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.

What grape to keep its place in the sun, taught our ancestors to make wine?