I found myself both touched and irritated by the discovery that she was vulnerable.

I did not find him absurd. I saw he was kind, that he was on the verge of real love. I thought it would be nice for me to be in love with him, too.

curiosity is the beginning of wisdom.

No one ever has time to examine himself honestly, and most people look no further than their neighbors' eyes, in which they may see their own reflection.

I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.

We are torn between the craving to know and the despair of having known.

For this was the round of love: fear which leads on desire, tenderness and fury, and that brutal anguish which triumphantly follows pleasure.