How surprisingly alive false ideas are! They even have their own evolution. At first they are highfalutin' 'truths,' then humdrum 'laws,' and finally…

- Nina Berberova

Paris is not a city, it is the image, the symbol of France, its today and yesterday, the reflection of its history, its geography and its hidden esse…

- Nina Berberova

[On New York:] ... a city rose before me. It was narrow and tall like a gothic temple, surrounded by water, and ... it suddenly appeared, as if with …

- Nina Berberova

This is my main shortcoming: I was so determined not to lose time that I often did the wrong thing. Not losing time has been my permanent concern sin…

- Nina Berberova

[On Paris:] It exists, constant, eternal, surrounding us who live in it, and it is in us. We love it or hate it, but we cannot escape it. It is a cir…

- Nina Berberova

The idea came to me that I was, am, and will be, but perhaps will not become. This did not scare me. There was for me in being an intensity I did not…

- Nina Berberova

my choices were partly conditioned by the two great laws - of biology and sociology - for I do not conceive of myself outside of them. ... Inside eve…

- Nina Berberova

Pearls ... have a way of dying when separated from their owner.

- Nina Berberova

I had learnt to seek intensity rather than happiness, not joys and prosperity but more of life, a concentrated sense of life, a strengthened feeling …

- Nina Berberova