I don't do farm animals. Can't stand hay in your leathers? Or wool in my teeth.
Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
It is misery, you know, unspeakable misery for the man who lives alone and who detests sordid, casual affairs; not old enough to do without women, but not young enough to be able to go and look for one without shame!
Not one of us can lie or pretend. We're all fixed in good faith in a certain concept of ourselves.
Man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them.
Buffoons, buffoons! One can play any tune on them!
We all grasp on to a single idea of ourselves, the way aging people dye their hair. It’s no matter that this dye doesn’t fool you. My lady, you don’t dye your hair to decieve other people, or to fool yourself, but rather to cheat your image in your mirror a little.
. . . my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves.
That's one of the things about getting older isn't it? You suddenly realise that you are what you set out to be. And there are no role models any more.
Grief does not seem to me to be a choice. Whether or not you think grief has value, you will lose what matters to you. The world will break your heart. So I think we’d better look at what grief might offer us. It’s like what Rilke says about self-doubt: it is not going to go away, and therefore you need to think about how it might become your ally.
The older you get, the more you learn.