And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

The best letters of our time are precisely those that can never be published.

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.

No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes

Marvelous are the innocent.

A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one

Night had come—night that she loved of all times, night in which the reflections in the dark pool of the mind shine more clearly than by day.