As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things; but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other.

I felt that Paris was illuminated by a splendor possessed by no other places.

I beg of you, you good people who want to hear stories told: look at this page and recognize the wisdom of my grandmother and of all old story-telling women!

Do you know...what I think is a great pity? It is this: that we have all become such skeptics that we hardly believe what our pious grandmothers told us.

I have before seen other countries, in the same manner, give themselves to you when you are about to leave them.

While we are young the idea of death or failure is intolerable to us; even the possibility of ridicule we cannot bear.

The divine art is the story.