Be not afraid of absurdity; do not shrink from the fantastic. Within a dilemma, choose the most unheard-of, the most dangerous solution. Be brave, be brave.

There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne — bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.

It is difficult to restrain admirers of Shakespeare once they have begun to speak of him.

The entire being of a woman is a secret which should be kept.

Then Martine said: "So yuo will be poor now all your life, Babette?" Poor?" said Babette. She smiled as if to herself. "No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor.We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing.

A poet's mission is to make others confound fiction and reality in order to render them, for an hour, mysteriously happy.

All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.