“Better hope deferred than none.”

But what matter whether I was born or not, have lived or not, am dead or merely dying. I shall go on doing as I have always done, not knowing what it is I do, nor who I am, nor where I am, nor if I am.

If you don’t know where you are currently standing, you’re dead.

The old endless chain of love, tolerance, indifference, aversion and disgust.

To restore silence is the role of objects.

Friendship, according to Proust, is the negation of that irremediable solitude to which every human being is condemned.

Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.

Poets are the sense, philosophers­­ the intelligence­­ of humanity.

Do we mean love, when we say love?

Sometimes I wonder if I’m in my right mind. Then it passes off and I’m as intelligent as ever.

We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener.

Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.

If I was dead, I wouldn’t know I was dead. That’s the only thing I have against death. I want to enjoy my death.

That desert of loneliness and recrimination that men call love.

I marshalled the words and opened my mouth, thinking I would hear them. But all I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

To have been always what I am – and so changed from what I was.

All women, everywhere, have the same hopes: we want to be self-sufficient and create better lives for ourselves and our loved ones.

I really appreciate my performing so much better, as I get older. I don’t take it for granted anymore. I really relish it and love it.

It feels better to love than to hate.

Aspire, break bounds. Endeavor to be good, and better still, best.

Pessimism is playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child’s play.

Hollywood – that’s a place where love is viewed both pragmatically and philosophically in the saying, ‘Tis better to have loved and divorced than never to have had any publicity at all.

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.

If you need to invoke your academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you need a better argument.