Man, an animal that makes bargains.

Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste.

The moment that any life, however good, stifles you, you may be sure it isn’t your real life.

Do you know the times when one seems to stick fast in circumstances like the fly in the jam-pot? It can’t be helped, and I suppose the best thing to do is to lay in a good store of jam!

A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one’s movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation.

There remain times when one can only endure. One lives on, one doesn’t die, and the only thing that one can do, is to fill one’s mind and time as far as possible with the concerns of other people. It doesn’t bring immediate peace, but it brings the dawn nearer.

I don’t like authority, at least I don’t like other people’s authority.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality – the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

A well begun is half ended.

The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.