I feel my brains, like a pear, to see if it's ripe; it will be exquisite by September.

After all, what is a lovely phrase? One that has mopped up as much Truth as it can hold.

Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse, it is remarkable, remembering the bitterness of those days, what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about.

Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.

For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed?

I am in the mood to dissolve in the sky.

But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.