For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself.

If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.

The main motive for non-attachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.

By keeping men off, you keep them on.

To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness.

A mans profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness if he carried on his reserve to a third.

Retirement accords with the tone of my mind: I will not descend to a world I despise.