Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it.

A blocked path also offers guidance.

Cats are inquisitive, but hate to admit it.

Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.

Ultimately, blind faith is the only kind.

City people make most of the fuss about the charms of country life.

Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.

Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.

Children now expect their parents to audition for approval.

Middle age went by while I was mourning for my lost youth.

Money: power at its most liquid.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

My mind is led astray by every faint rustle.

The man of sensibility is too busy talking about his feelings to have time for good deeds.

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

Magic trick: to make people disappear, ask them to fulfill their promises.

Critic's delight: scolding the Mighty Dead.

Seeing my malevolent face in the mirror, my benevolent soul shrinks back.

Innocence: I am only stepping on your face because it lies in my path.

Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.

Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.

Unlike the actual, the fictional explains itself.

An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.

Kindness eases everything almost as much as money does.

If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism.

After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.

When I prayed for success, I forgot to ask for sound sleep and good digestion.

A blunt statement can be as false as any other.

I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.

To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget.

Sloth, not ill-will, makes me unjust.

The real secrets are not the ones I tell.

Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean.

Young poets bewail the passing of love; old poets, the passing of time. There is surprisingly little difference.

In every death, a busy world comes to an end.

Why do we never expect dull people to be rascals?

Mind and body obstruct one another's pleasures.

In the street, the gaze of desire is furtive or menacing.

I love you is the inscription on Pandora's box.

Few artists can afford artistic temperament.

Old and young disbelieve one another's truths.

If beggars do not hate the rest of us, they are even more abject than I had imagined.

Reputation runs behind the current state of affairs.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

Conscious thought is the tidying up at the end.

Romantics consider common sense vulgar.

The body has a mind of its own.

Stated clearly enough, an idea may cancel itself out.

Amazing that the human race has taken enough time out from thinking about food or sex to create the arts and sciences.

Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.