The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

She was not too young to be wise, but she was too young to know that wisdom shouldn't be spoken aloud when you are happy.

Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.

The argument of danger only applies to those who live in relative safety.

With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed-he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Dog.

Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Who knows whether there may not be a moment in childhood when the world changes forever, like making a face when the clock strikes?