It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.

The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.

When I wake up," he said, "remind me that I'm going to marry her.

I never had intimate friends, and the few who came close are in New York. By which I mean they're dead, because that's where I suppose condemned souls go in order not to endure the truth of their past lives.

Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.

The anxiety of falling in love could not find repose except in bed.

She likes to try everything, out of curiosity, but she'll be sorry if she isn't guided by her heart.