“Claude could simply not imagine the couples he met at parties or passed on the street ever being locked in carnal embrace.”

“Like all solitary persons he had invested friendship with a divine glamour: he imagined that the people he passed on the street, laughing together and embracing when they parted, the people who dined together with so many smiles, you will scarcely believe me, but he imagined that they were extracting from all that congeniality great store of satisfaction.”

“Living with him is like being told a perpetual story: his mind is the biggest, most imaginative I have ever met. I could live in its growing countries forever.”

“So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair that ever since in love's embraces met -- Adam, the goodliest man of men since born his sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.”

“Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef.”

“He was the only person I ever met whose soul I could clearly see in his eyes. And I had more faith in him than I've ever had in another human being.”