“When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.”

“Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.”

“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.”

“The table was prettily decorated with camellias from the orangery, and upon the snow-white tablecloth, amongst the clear crystal glasses, the old green wineglasses threw delicate little shadows, like the spirit of a pine forest in summer. The Prioress had on a grey taffeta frock with a very rare lace, a white lace cap with streamers, and her old diamond eardrops and brooches. The heroic strength of soul of old women, Boris thought, who with great taste and trouble make themselves beautiful - more beautiful, perhaps, than they have ever been as young women - and who still can hold no hope of awakening any desire in the hearts of men, is like a righteous man working at his good deeds even after he has abandoned his faith in a heavenly reward.”

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.”

“Then Martine said: "So yuo will be poor now all your life, Babette?"Poor?" said Babette. She smiled as if to herself. "No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor.We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing.”

“When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them.”