I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.

But what is the heart, madame? It's worth less than people think. it's quite accommodating, it accepts anything. You give it whatever you have, it's not very particular. But the body... Ha! That's something else again! It has a cultivated taste, as they say, it knows what it wants. A heart doesn't choose, and one always ends up by loving.

I am indebted to the cat for a particular kind of honorable deceit, for a greater control over myself, for a characteristic aversion to brutal sounds, and for the need to keep silent for long periods of time.

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

I want nothing from love, in short, but love.

So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

If we want to be sincere, we must admit that there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature.