“I have met ghosts who attract me, and, following my habit in the material world, I have avoided the ghosts that bore me.”

“All cities have a certain fascination that is lost with too intimate a knowledge.”

“The Parisian is of all men the most sophisticated. Paris is a city of realists, unaffected by sentimentality; a city of industry and thrift; a city of irony, but rarely of laughter, of wit but never or humour, of superficial intolerance and yet of people who regard the rest of the world with more or less amiable contempt.”

“Of all the women in the world the Parisian woman is the best to look at. When one knows her one discovers that she is not quite so different from other women as one would suppose from the way that she does her hair.”

“Every man's Paris is his own, with its own characteristics, and is in some respects at least unlike the Paris of any one else.”

“As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me. The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.”

“I have never given my heart to anybody. I didn’t know I had one. But I gave it to you. That makes me vulnerable. I am at your mercy.”