We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.

Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.

Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey.

It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad.

The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.

Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead.