We need new friends; some of us are cannibals who have eaten their old friends up; others must have ever-renewed audiences before whom to re-enact the ideal version of their lives.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

Hearts that are delicate and kind and tongues that are neither - these make the finest company in the world.

To become young again would seem to me an appalling prospect. Youth is a kind of delirium, which can be cured, if it is ever cured at all, by years of painful treatment.

What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. But always the rarest, those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.

If they lost the incredible conviction that they can change their wives or husbands, marriage would collapse at once.

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