We exist only by virtue of what we possess, we possess only what is really present to us, and many of our memories, our moods, our ideas sail away on a voyage of their own until they are lost to sight! Then we can no longer take them into account in the total which is our personality. But they know of secret paths by which to return to us.

The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do [with great artists]; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star.

The loss of a sense adds as much beauty to the world as its acquisition.

Less disappointing than life, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.

The stellar universe is not so difficult to understand as the real actions of other people, especially of the people with whom we are in love.

The most familiar precepts are not always the truest.