How many inner resources one needs to tolerate a life of leisure without fatigue.

Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.

Tea – that perfume that one drinks, that connecting hyphen...

All expression, all art, is an indiscretion we commit against ourselves. This is not an ‘impoverishment’ but an increase in wealth, for it is in this way that we make the short hours of our lives live on beyond themselves.

A scholar’s heart is a dark well in which are buried many aborted feelings that rise to the surface as arguments.

Paris has always seemed... the only city where you can live and express yourself as you please.

Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity...

Avoid that romantic trap: saying more than you feel, forcing yourself to feel more than you’ve said!

To be one’s own master is to be the slave of self.

I’m fond of human beings, but only one at a time.