“...the apartment is an oasis - of civility, kindness, and elegance.”
“Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.”
“I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.”
“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.”
“We are an oasis in the desert, beautiful but doomed!”
“Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.”