I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination.

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

Our work can never be better than we are ourselves.

The mind has no sex.

Gossiping is the plague of little towns.

Where there is no longer love, there is no longer anything.

Sorrow makes us very good or very bad.