"It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses."

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“It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.”

“Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.”

“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.”

“You do not notice changes in what is always before you.”

“It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.”

“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.”

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