“Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really.”

“It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.”

“You'd think the sight of beautiful Place Vendôme would lift my spirits but oddly the arc of jewellery - so obviously beyond the means of a jobless person like me - only depresses me more. I plod on feeling confused, guilty even, that I should feel unhappy in a place that looks like paradise.”

“We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh. ”

“[T]he great end of education . . . is to persuade and to inspire the sincere love of virtue.”

“I know of no other place that is so fascinating yet so frustrating, so aware of the world and its own place within it but at the same time utterly insular. A country touched by nostalgia, with a past so great - so marked by brilliance and achievement - that French people today seem both enriched and burdened by it. France is like a maddening, moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. One minute it fills you with a rush of passion, the next you're full of fury, itching to smack the mouth of some sneering shopkeeper or smug civil servant. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship.”

“It is a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures. Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same.”