May I die like a dog rather than hasten the ripening of a sentence by a single second!

A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.

Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

Coffee: Induces wit. Good only if it comes through Havre. After a big dinner party it is taken standing up. Take it without sugar - very swank: gives the impression you have lived in the East.

Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature.

Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.

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.