The man who discovers a woman's weakness is like the huntsman in the heat of the day who finds a cool spring. He wallows in it.

I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage – unless you have an agent and pay him a commission. Nothing is free anymore to sell itself or give itself away. These days, Countess, every cabbage has its pimp.

Half the human race can change its name and sometimes its nation without suffering — at least half! All women!

In times of death and famine, reason is on the side of the priests-who have their own kind of logic which cries for miracles and, on occasion, invents them.

Born enemies don't fight. Nations you would say were designed to go to war against each other by their skins, their language, their smell; always jealous of each other, always hating each other; they're not the ones who fight. You will find the real antagonists in nations fate has groomed and made ready for the same war.

A faithful woman looks to the spring, a good book, perfume, earthquakes, and divine revelation for the experience others find in a lover. They deceive their husbands, so to speak, with the entire world, men excepted.

Death is the next step after the pension-it's perpetual retirement without pay.