There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

beautiful December grapes, blue as plums, every grape a little skinful of sweet, tasteless water

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.

Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: It's four o clock. At five I have my abyss.

I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.