“I want people to be sincere; a man of honor shouldn’t speak a single word that doesn’t come straight from his heart.”

It is a strange enterprise to make respectable people laugh.

The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

Gold makes the ugly beautiful.

People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.

The genuine Amphitryon is the Amphitryon with whom we dine.

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death.

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.

New-born desires, after all, have inexplicable charms, and all the pleasure of love is in variety.

All the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.

Each day my reason tells me so; But reason doesn’t rule in love, you know.

The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living.

Ah, there are no longer any children!

When there is enough to eat for eight, there is plenty for ten.

Folk whose own behavior is most ridiculous are always to the fore in slandering others.

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless.

Often, we need to ignore the words people say and attend to their underlying, urgent, life or death questions: Am I valuable? Am I loved? The great thing is that the answer is easy: Yes! The answer is always yes. We don’t have to think too hard.

Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement.

What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.

Swallow my words. Taste my thoughts. And if it’s too nasty, spit it back at me!

I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.

Some words are heavy. I’m still learning how to rise after your goodbye.

One word could destroy me and all I need to do is hear your name.

And what happens when you run out of words? You listen. Deeply. To everything around you.