Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas.

Were it possible for us to wait for ourselves to come into the room, not many of us would find our hearts breaking into flower as we heard the door handle turn.

I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of mutual obligations that have to be honored, and a legal system which can be trusted to step in when that sense fails.

It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.

It is astonishing how the human animal survives its misfortunes.

History sometimes acts as madly as heredity, and her most unpredictable performances are often her most glorious.

... A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is like a beautiful hand with long fingers reaching out to pluck a perfect fruit, without error,for the accurate eye knows well it is growing just there on the branch, while Ulysses is the fumbling of a horned hand in darkness after a doubted jewel.