It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship. - Colette

You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.

Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness.

There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.