For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian──ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection that unattainable by the highest art.

There was hardly an eminent writer in Paris who was unacquainted with the inside of the Conciergerie or the Bastille.

A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile

It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.

As usual, it struck me that letters were the only really satisfactory form of literature. They give one the facts so amazingly, don’t they? I felt when I got to the end that I’d lived...