My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.

Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all.

People belong to each other only as long as they both believe. He stopped believing.

But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.

To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too-that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.

Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.

I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.