An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.

I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened.

One's emotions are intensified in Paris—one can be more happy and also more unhappy here than in any other place. But it is always a positive source of joy to live here, and there is nobody so miserable as a Parisian in exile from his town.

To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease.

always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives

I am sometimes bored by people, but never by life.

Sisters are a shield against life's cruel adversity.