Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now.

A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant. We have not managed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us past it, and then if we turn round to gaze at the remote past, we can barely catch sight of it, so imperceptible has it become.

Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

And so when studying faces, we do indeed measure them, but as painters, not as surveyors.

Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which otherwise would remain unknown to us like the landscapes of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists.

When I am not too sad to listen, music is my consolation.