The real ordeal is not leaving those you love but learning to live without those who don't love you.

We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were able to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.

I may know that the world is an ugly place, I still don't want to see it.

People think that children don't know anything. It's enough to make you wonder if grownups were ever children once upon a time.

When tea becomes ritual, it takes place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.

What is an aristocrat? A woman who is never sullied by vulgarity, although she may be surrounded by it.

How to measure a life's worth? The important thing, said Paloma one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death.