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

There are connoisseurs of blue just as there are connoisseurs of wine.

Is suffering so very serious? …I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful… hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain… is no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.

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

A kindly gesture bestowed by us on an animal arouses prodigies of understanding and gratitude.

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

I am indebted to the cat for a particular kind of honorable deceit, for a greater control over myself, for a characteristic aversion to brutal sounds, and for the need to keep silent for long periods of time.

A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.

I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.

If we want to be sincere, we must admit that there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature.

The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.

Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.

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

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.

By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

hen you’re in your third adulthood, the one that leads to the grave, and you ask yourself, “What will I do between now and then?” Instead of thinking in terms of glamour, you start thinking in terms of reform – your contribution to the world.

The path that was entered upon only one hundred and fifty years ago … How young she is! It will be centuries before she will adopt that maturity of custom – the clothing of the grave – that some people believe she is already fitted for.

Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, ‘Never! Never!’

We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave.

Brothers, we must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other’s battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirit.

I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.

Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers.

When we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.