Life is extraordinarily suave and sweet with certain natural, witty, affectionate people who have unusual distinction and are capable of every vice, but who make a display of none in public and about whom no one can affirm they have a single one. There is something supple and secret about them. Besides, their perversity gives spice to their most innocent occupations, such as taking a walk in the garden at night.

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.

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

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

Perhaps the pleasure one feels in writing is not the infallible test of the literary value of a page; perhaps it is only a secondary state which is often superadded, but the want of which can have no prejudicial effect on it. Perhaps some of the greatest masterpieces were written while yawning.

Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.

At the heart of our friendly or purely social relations, there lurks a hostility momentarily cured but recurring by fits and starts.