The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection -even though nothing more than the pounding of an old piano -is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

Charming people live up to the very edge of their charm, and behave as outrageously as the world will let them.

What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?

Don't tell friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.

Uncultivated minds are not full of wild flowers, like uncultivated fields. Villainous weeds grow in them and they are the haunt of toads.

If it's to be, it's up to me.

This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.