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

Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.

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.

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

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

All our lives we sweat and save, Building for a shallow grave.

Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.

Riches cannot rescue from the grave, which claims alike the monarch and the slave.

Ah, yet, e’er I descend to th’ grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true

I descend into an unopened sky, the ocean floor, the final embrace of a graveyard. Find your fill of me before my blue pales like a sour moon.

Lying is before you and the grave is in front of you.

A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power. We are not interested in the greening of Amerika except for the grass that will cover its grave.

We danced through the graveyard and between the ruins for the dead and broken sang to our souls.