At that time, he was satisfying a sensual curiosity by experiencing the pleasures of people who live for love. He had believed he could stop there, that he would not be obliged to learn their sorrows; how small a thing her charm was for him now compared with the astounding terror that extended out from it like a murky halo, the immense anguish of not knowing at every moment what she had been doing, of not possessing her everywhere and always!

A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs, so we deceive her with another whom we do not love.

Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.

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

... we made much less happy by the kindness of a great writer, which strictly speaking we find only in his books, than we suffer from the hostility of a woman whom we have not chosen for her intelligence, but whom we cannot stop ourselves from loving.

Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.

Dear Friend: I have nearly died three times since morning.