In little towns, lives roll along so close to one another; loves and hates beat about, their wings almost touching.

I had killed a big snake. I was now a big fellow.

Some people's lives are affected by what happens to their person or their property; but for others fate is what happens to their feelings and their thoughts -- that and nothing more.

Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.

Nothing mattered ... but writing books, and living the kind of life that made it possible to write them.

The trouble is you almost have to marry a man before you can find out the sort of wife he needs; and usually it's exactly the sort you are not.

Paris is a hard place to leave, even when it rains incessantly and one coughs continually from the dampness.