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

The brain is a tool that gets rusty without constant, albeit moderate, exercise.

There is but on virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.

There are no more thorough prudes than those who have some little secret to hide.

Weeds are omnipresent; errors are to be found in the heart of the most lovable.

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.

You see what stupid folk my publishers are; but they are all alike.