If Paris is the setting for a romance, New York is the perfect city in which to get over one, to get over anything. Here the lost douceur de vivre is forgotten and the intoxication of living takes over.

Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.

There is no hate without fear. Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

As bees their sting, so the promiscuous leave behind them in each encounter something of themselves by which they are made to suffer.

Translating from one language to another is the most delicate of intellectual exercises; compared to translation, all other puzzles, from bridge to crosswords, seem trivial and vulgar. To take a piece of Greek and put it in English without spilling a drop; what a nice skill!

 The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.

Only by avoiding the beginning of things can we escape their end.

We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy.

The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.