It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

They like my books better in England than in France; a translation would be very successful there.

I believe that all true art is classic, but the dictates of the mind rarely permit of its being recognized as such when it first appears.

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

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 character we exhibit in the latter half of our life need not necessarily be, though it often is, our original character, developed further, dried up, exaggerated, or diminished. It can be its exact opposite, like a suit worn inside out.

In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europehas endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form.