There is only one good thing in life, and that is love.
The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity.
I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt.
Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies.
You’ve never lived until you’ve almost died. For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected shall never know.
To avoid each other, their eyes had developed an amazing mobility with all the cunning of enemies fearful of meeting each other head on.
The essence of life is the smile of round female bottoms, under the shadow of cosmic boredom.
It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.
Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It’s the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.
History, that excitable and unreliable old lady.
The public is composed of numerous groups whose cry to us writers is: ‘Comfort me.’ ‘Amuse me.’ ‘Touch my sympathies.’ ‘Make me sad.’ ‘Make me dream.’ ‘Make me laugh.’ ‘Make me shiver.’ ‘Make me weep.’ ‘Make me think.’
To contest an author’s right to create a poetic or realistic work is to want to force him to change his temperament, challenge his originality, refuse to allow him to use the eye and the intelligence nature has given him.
We are accustomed to use our eyes only with the memory of what other people before us have thought about the object we are looking at.
The simplest of women are wonderful liars who can extricate themselves from the most difficult dilemmas with a skill bordering on genius.
To lie about a far country is easy.
Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised.
Killing is decreed by law but nature loves eternal youth. Whatever she does, however unconscious and unfeeling the act, she seems to cry out: ‘Quick! Quick! Quick!’ And the more she destroys, the more she is renewed.
In the East men know panic, but they do not know what fright is.
Travel, like dreams, is a door that opens from the real world into a world that is yet to be discovered.
The glasses were half full, which meant that the guests were completely so.