When the loo paper gets thicker and the writing paper thinner, it's always a bad sign, at home.

Paris in the early morning has a cheerful, bustling aspect, a promise of delicious things to come, a positive smell of coffee and croissants, quite peculiar to itself. The people welcome a new day as if they were certain of liking it, the shopkeepers pull up their blinds serene in the expectation of good trade, the workers go happily to their work, the people who have sat up all night in night-clubs go happily to their rest, the orchestra of motor-car horns, of clanking trams, of whistling policemen tunes up for the daily symphony, and everywhere is joy.

I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.

Nothing makes people crosser than being considered too old for love.

When the loo paper gets thicker and the writing paper thinner, it's always a bad sign, at home.

It's a funny thing that people are always ready to admit it if they've no talent for drawing or music, whereas everyone imagines that they themselves are capable of true love, which is a talent like any other, only far more rare.

If one can't be happy, one must be amused.