We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

We soon cease to feel the grief at the deaths of our friends, yet we continue to the end of our lives to miss them. They are still with us in their absence.

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

Every writer and artist wonders what in the world people of other professions can find to live for.

We confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.

It is by sitting down to write every morning that he becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.