Everything tender and melancholy - as life is sometimes, just for one moment.

The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.

I'm no use to anybody,' I say. 'I'm a cérébrale, can't you see that?' Thinking how funny a book would be, called 'Just a Cérébrale or You Can't Stop Me From Dreaming'. Only, of course, to be accepted as authentic, to carry any conviction, it would have to be written by a man. What a pity, what a pity!

She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.

You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.

When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.

What you take to be hyprocrisy is sometimes a certain caution, sometimes genuine, though ponderous, childish, sometimes a mixture of both.