“I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any. ”

“I had started out in life trusting everyone and now I trusted no one. So I had a few acquaintances and no close friends. It was perhaps in reaction against the inevitable loneliness of my life that...”

“Almost any book was better than life, Audrey thought. Or rather, life as she was living it. Of course, life would soon change, open out, become quite different. You couldn't go on if you didn't hop...”

“I had had the job for three weeks. It was dreary. You couldn't read; they didn't like it. I would feel as if I were drugged, sitting there, watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they...”

“Well, let's argue this out, Mr Blank. You, who represent Society, have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month. That's my market value, for I am an inefficient member of Society, slow in th...”

“Anything you like; anything I like... No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us”

“The dark sky seemed to swallow the moon, as Samantha stood alone on the deserted highway.”

“Sitting to think of what to write will only set your ass on fire, give you headache, twist your face to look stupid, instead, walk around with a blank mind and something from somewhere will fill it...”

“What are you doing?" Alain asked."Starting a fire, of course." Mari held up the thing in her hand. "It's a fire-starter. A really simple device. Haven't you ever seen one?"Alain shook his head. "Ne...”

“Don't allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is 'only' your husband to see you. Depend upon it he has no use for faded tea-gowns and badly dressed hair, and he abhor...”

“Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.”

“Dress for the position you want, not the position you have.”

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves”

“Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.”

“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”