there does seem to me something sad in life. It is hard to say what it is. I don't mean the sorrow that we all know, like illness and poverty and death. No, it is something different. It is there, deep down, deep down, part of one, like one's breathing.

There is no feeling to be compared with the feeling of having written and finished a story.

I am going to enjoy life in Paris I know. It is so human and there is something noble in the city... It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for everybody to see.

When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

Perhaps it does not matter so very much what it is one loves in this world. But love something one must.

In the woods where snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.

The ostrich burying its head in the sand does at any rate wish to convey the impression that its head is the most important part of it.