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.

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.

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.

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.

I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.

Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.

Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger.