So,” he said. “What’s the difference between me and a whore?” He swallowed. “Am I a whore?” “No more than every married woman. - Edmund White

The observer is a prince who, wearing a disguise, takes pleasure everywhere.

That eminently Parisian compromise between laziness and activity known as flanerie.

Americans are particularly ill-suited to be flaneurs. They are always driven by the urge towards self-improvement.

In New York you can tell by people's body language that no one cares what other people think of them, whereas in Paris everyone is judging everyone and the only people who have this American-style insouciance are the insane.

What I had instead was the ache of waiting and the fear I wasn’t worthy.

When we are young... we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now.