“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“For Stephen, London was less a city that never slept, more a city that got a good nine hours.”

“Every man is a prisoner, and the greatest irony of all is to be the prisoner of another man.”