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

What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.

Yes, my mother's death is a terrible sorrow to me. I feel - do you know what I mean - the silence of it so. She was more alive than anyone I have ever known.

Regret is an appalling waste of time.

In the shortest sea voyage there is no sense of time. You have been down in the cabin for hours or days or years. Nobody knows or cares. You know all the people to the point of indifference. You do not believe in dry land any more - you are caught in the pendulum itself, and left there, idly swinging.

But one day we shall be rich, and the next poor. One day we shall dine in a palace and the next we'll sit in a forest and toast mushrooms on a hatpin.

You have never been curious about me; you never wanted to explore my soul.