It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest.

Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection.

The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail.

When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.