It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.

... anybody is as their land and air is. Anybody is as the sky is low or high, the air heavy or clear and anybody is as there is wind or no wind there. It is that which makes them and the arts they make and the work they do and the way they eat and the way they drink and the way they learn and everything.

There is something in this native land business and you cannot get away from it, in peace time you do not seem to notice it much particularly when you live in foreign parts but when there is a war and you are all alone and completely cut off from knowing about your country well then there it is, your native land is your native land, it certainly is.

Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.

I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought.

It is nice in France they adapt themselves to everything slowly they change completely but all the time they know that they are as they were.

Every day is a renewal, every morning the daily miracle. This joy you feel is life.