...A strange art – music – the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra.

The only certainty is death.

Champagne... the wine of kings, the king of wines

Ale, not beer, in a pewter mug was comme il faut, the only thing for a gentleman of letters, worthy of the name, to drink.

We breathe love as we breathe air; we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us.

The secret is not to betray your ignorance. Just maneuver, avoid the quicksands and obstacles, and the rest can be found in a dictionary.

Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down.