“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.”

The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.

It is our own evil thoughts which madden us.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

A mental stain can neither be blotted out by the passage of time nor washed away by any waters.

Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.

In times of war, the law falls silent.

A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?

Life is nothing without friendship.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.

Fragrance is an incredibly intimate thing. It can evoke very specific thoughts or memories and is a little different for each person who wears it. I also think it’s the most accessible luxury.

Typically in my novels the narrator tells a story by remembering, and the memories are colored by this and colored by that. So the whole universe of the novel tends to be framed by the narrator’s memories and thoughts.

All good novelists have bad memories. What you remember comes out as journalism; what you forget goes into the compost of the imagination.

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

All my summer memories sparkle in riverbed reflections.

I generally have a real strong idea or a strong punchline, and I just try to get to it by rambling around, as I don’t like to memorize words.

Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers.