"I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart."

"Total absence of humor renders life impossible."

"As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow."

"A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up."

"One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave."

"Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight."

"My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved."

"Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette."

"It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place."

"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner."

"There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion."

"Writing only leads to more writing."

"Be happy. It's one way of being wise."

"There are days when solitude 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."

"It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship."

"I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it."

"January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead."

"On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us - ah! what a dream, to live in that! - the other stifles us at the first breath."

"Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you."

"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."

"A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts."

"The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time."

"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."

"Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either."

"The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not."

"No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object."

"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet."

"I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering."

"In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness."

"The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives."

"To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one."