Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.

Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.

In her enthusiasms she had always looked for something tangible: she had always loved church for its flowers, music for its romantic words, literature for its power to stir the passions and she rebelled before the mysteries of faith just as she grew ever more restive under discipline, which was antipathetic to her nature.

One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.