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.

All my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The rest don't interest me.

A love affair based on jealousy is doomed from the start ... It is certanly a sign of love, but it's a sign that it's already dying.

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.

A Strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me but now I am almost ashamed of it's complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.

The rich have a passion for bargains as lively as it is pointless.

Passion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before.