To eat together is one of the greatest promoters of intimacy. It is the satisfaction in common of a material necessity of existence, and if you seek a loftier meaning in it, it is a communion.

The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.

honesty dies in selling itself.

You don't have to write to me if you don't feel like it. There's no real friendship without absolute freedom.

Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.

I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men. . . . People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off.

fretting at trouble only doubles it.