“my life will never be where you think you can find it--too bad for me”

“Avoid contact with all people in whom there is no possible resonance with what touches you most deeply and toward whom you have obligations of "kindness," of politeness.”

“Recognition is a fire ; you can burn or find warmth and comfort by it.”

“You don't think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.”

“Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him- and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days. ”

“The word 'pure' has never revealed an intelligent meaning to me. I can only use the word to quench and optical thirst for purity in the transparencies that evoke it - in bubbles, in a volume of water, and in the imaginary latitudes entrenched, beyond reach, at the very center of a dense crystal.”

“... what an ennobling sadness you lent to my evening's enjoyment.”