38 quotes
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
New York World-Telegram and Sun (1961)
My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.
Break of Day (1928)
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
Paris From My Window (1944)
It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change.
The world of the emotions that we so lightly call physical.
By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.
Mes Apprentissages (1936)
In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.
Gigi (1945)
The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.
Paris From My Window (1944)
It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
Le Pur et l'Impur (The Pure and the Impure) (1932)
You do not notice changes in what is always before you.
Mes Apprentissages (1936)
Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.
Total absence of humor renders life impossible.
Chance Acquaintances (1952)
It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.
For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance.
What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised!
When she raises her eyelids it's as if she were taking off her clothes.
Claudine s'en va (1903)
If one wished to be perfectly sincere, one would have to admit there are two kinds of love—well-fed and ill-fed. The rest is pure fiction.
As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness.