So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty. All other pacts of love or fear derive from it and are modeled upon it.

I do not believe that we can stop perfecting new ways of dying until we have found new ways of living. Every new life-way ought to prevent a new death-way.

Surely no one can be sure he has visited Cienega; people say to themselves, do they not: 'Was it a vision; or have I, some time or other, seen dusk in a valley like this?'

When an individual fear or apathy would cause us to pass by the unfortunate, then life is of no account.

The moment one accosts a stranger or is accosted by him is above all in this life the moment of drama... Whoever we meet watches us intently at the quick, strange moment of meeting, to see whether we are disposed to be friendly.

In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in.

When people discuss religion, it is a pity that they often become excited and argue. We should merely listen, as one does on a dark night; we should merely gaze at the stars.