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.

A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men...

I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.

Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.

We only do well the things we like doing.

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.