But happiness is brittle, and if men and circumstances don't destroy it, it is threatened by ghosts.

A touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.

When two texts, or two assertions, perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other; regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is too complex.

Translating is writing.

[On travel:] Who would be so besotted as to die without having made at least the round of this, his prison?

Want of passion is, I think, a very striking characteristic of Americans, not unrelated to their predilection for violence. For very few people truly have a passionate desire to achieve, and violence serves as a kind of substitute.

There are books which one should not attempt before having passed the age of forty.