It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.
The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.
Writing is a dog’s life, but the only life worth living.
Coffee: Induces wit. Good only if it comes through Havre. After a big dinner party it is taken standing up. Take it without sugar – very swank: gives the impression you have lived in the East.
Talent is long patience.
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel.
Exuberance is better than taste.
Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.
He dreamed of funeral love, but dreams crumble and the tomb abides.
What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in!
What wretched poverty of language! To compare stars to diamonds!
There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.
By trying to understand everything, everything makes me dream.
You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything.
Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.
Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.