It is from books that wise men derive consolation in the troubles of life.

Symmetry is tedious, and tedium is the very basis of mourning. Despair yawns.

A woman's best qualities are harmful if undiluted with prudence.

He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.

Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time.

It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.

A wedding is not house-keeping.