You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.

The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.

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.

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

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.

You don't think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.