Elizabeth Bibesco

It is better not to sit on the grass after thirty when sprawling at all is difficult, let alone sprawling gracefully. ”

Only the artists interest me whose hearts beat in unison with the poignant misery of the world. If you have not felt that, you have not lived. Pity is essential. ”

Irony is the hygiene of the mind. ”

Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting. ”

Isn't that what love means, to fill ordinary, commonplace, conventional things with magic and significance, not to need the moon and white scent-heavy flowers at night? ”

Passion is no respecter of persons. She hardly seems to select her victims. ”

To others we are not ourselves but performers in their lives cast for a part we do not even know we are playing. ”

I do not know at what moment in life, if ever, we realise that we are neither George Sands nor Juliets. Of course, if we are not beautiful, we recognise early that beauty is nothing. ”

All my life, I have loved balloons - all balloons - the heavy English sort, immense and round, that have to be pushed about, and the gay, light, gas-filled French ones that soar into the air the moment you let go of them. ”

Why don't people take the trouble to let you know that they are alive? It is so much more important. The whole system is wrong. No sooner do I die, than all the flowers I have ever longed for in life pour in. ”