All the humiliating, tragicomic, heartbreaking things happened to me in my girlhood, and nothing makes me happier than to realize I cannot possibly relive my youth.

When traveling abroad if you see something you yearn for if you can afford it at all, buy it. If you don't you'll regret it all your life.

Keeping your coat on indoors in Russia, no matter how public the place, is far worse than keeping your hat on as the flag goes by. It is worse than going into a Catholic church in Spain with your upper arms bare. It is worse than telling a mother her baby bores you.

That is what is so marvelous about Europe; the people long ago learned that space and beauty and quiet refuges in a great city, where children may play and old people sit in the sun, are of far more value to the inhabitants than real estate taxes and contractors' greed.

Like building a house, travel always costs more than you estimate.

Among famous traitors of history one might mention the weather.

It occurred to me that we live in a lunatic world where the only way to maintain peace is to have an enormous war-making machine.