Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity. - Gustave Flaubert

Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.

What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women