In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be encountered. Proust in Venice, Matisse's birdcages overlooking the flower market at Nice, Gide on the seventeenth-century quais of Toulon, Lorca in Granada, Picasso by Saint-Germain-des-Prés: there lies civilization and for me it can exist only under those liberal regimes in which the Present is alive and therefore capable of assimilating the Past.

A woman's desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions.

Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.

Longevity is the revenge of talent upon genius.

Only by avoiding the beginning of things can we escape their end.

The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe.