I think that one is constantly startled by the things that appear before you on the page when you're writing.

Nothing creates such untruth in you as the wish to please.

Italians are never punctual; the café, the convenient place to wait, absolves them from that. There is no question of hanging about, no looking lost and unwanted or even disreputable, as there is in hotel lobbies or the foyers of restaurants. One just sits and enjoys the scene, and waits.

In England, life is a long process of composing oneself.

When you realize someone is trying to hurt you, it hurts less." "Unless you love them.

It is the impulse of our century, with its nearly religious belief in magnitude, to fling an institution into every void.

When people say of their tragedies, 'I don't often think of it now,' what they mean is it has entered permanently into their thoughts, and colors everything.