“Conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say.”

“All right, she thought I was a funny little geezer, but my charred Phaethon had impressed her, I was very obviously available, and she was out for revenge. What makes Greek tragedies great is that this brand of psychological nonsense doesn't enter into it at all. I had wanted to tell her that too, but unfortunately conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say. We are descendents, we do not have mythical lives, but psychological ones. And we know everything, we are always our own chorus.”

“With the wise man, what he has does not cease to be enjoyable because some one else has something else. Envy, in fact, is one form of vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves but only in their relations”

“Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.”

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the most tempting moment.”

“Surely only boring people went in for conversations consisting of questions and answers. The art of true conversation consisted in the play of minds.”