An idea is like a rare bird which cannot be seen. What one sees is the trembling of the branch it has just left.

I am quite alone. I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.

The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.

History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.

A diary is the last place to go if you wish to seek the truth about a person. Nobody dares to make the final confession to themselves on paper: or at least, not about love.

It's unthinkable not to love - you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin.

A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.