The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.

One should always be in love.

There are works which wait, and which one does not understand for a long time; the reason is that they bring answers to questions which have not yet been raised; for the question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer.

A man who moralizes is a hypocrite, and a woman who does so is invariably plain.

He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.

I must say... that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.

Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.