“Last weekend a young man asked me how I remain so positive. “It seems all the negativity in the world doesn’t affect you,” he said. I had no more than a minute with the young man so I offered this: It’s all about where you choose to put your attention, and I choose to be happy.”

“M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'.”

“I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love, he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you, he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.”

“I am the most miserable person who ever lived," he said... "You are young, and in love," said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”

“So are you telling me…" he composed his thoughts. "Are you telling me that if you told the last story again, and changed the young woman to a young man, then somewhere in history that same young woman would suddenly grow a beard?" Tallis laughed at the image. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose so.”

“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.”