By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.

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.

Hope costs nothing.

I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

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.