The true solitary ... will feel that he is himself only when he is alone; when he is in company he will feel that he perjures himself, prostitutes himself to the exactions of others; he will feel that time spent in company is time lost; he will be conscious only of his impatience to get back to his true life.

To hope for Paradise is to live in Paradise, a very different thing from actually getting there.

See the last orange roses, how they blow / Deeper and heavier than in their prime, / In one defiant flame before they go.

There is nothing more lovely in life than the union of two people whose love for one another has grown through the years, from the small acorn of passion, into a great rooted tree

It is dreadful how I miss you, and everything that everybody says seems flat and stupid.

Gardening is a luxury occupation: an ornament, not a necessity, of life.... Fortunate gardener, who may preoccupy himself solely with beauty in these difficult and ugly days! He is one of the few people left in this distressful world to carry on the tradition of elegance and charm. A useless member of society, considered in terms of economics, he must not be denied his rightful place. He deserves to share it, however humbly, with the painter and poet.

Ambition, old as mankind, the immemorial weakness of the strong.