I had become, with the approach of night, once more aware of loneliness and time - those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything.

Of women, the most we can say, not being Frenchmen, is that they are burrowing animals.

The national characteristics... the restless metaphysical curiosity, the tenderness of good living and the passionate individualism. This is the invisible constant in a place with which the ordinary tourist can get in touch just by sitting quite quietly over a glass of wine in a Paris bistro.

Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.

Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.

Shyness has laws you can only give yourself; tragically to those who least understand.

Everything really desirable has come about because of, or in spite of, wine!