But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,' I said. 'He was the great love of her life, you know.' Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly. 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.

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

Spring came late, but when it came it was hand-in-hand with summer, and almost at once everything was baking and warm, and in the villages the people danced every night on concrete dancing floors under the plane trees.

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.

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

And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.

Sisters are a shield against life's cruel adversity.