The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one’s intellect to know it better.
What will be the death of me are buillabaisses, food spiced with pimiento, shellfish, and a load of exquisite rubbish which I eat in disproportionate quantities.
The conclusion does not belong to the artist.
Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.
The word realist means nothing to me, because I would subordinate reality to temperament. Give me what is true and I applaud; but give me what is individual and alive and I applaud even more.
Every wave is a water sprite who swims in the current, each current is a path which snakes towards my palace, and my palace is fluidly built at the bottom of the lake, in the triangle of earth, fire and water.
Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy – love which creates life?
Paris flared – Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice.
My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul.
Lovers are made by a kiss.
Why is it that my heart is so touched whenever I meet a dog lost in our noisy streets? Why do I feel such anguished pity when I see one of these creatures coming and going, sniffing everyone, frightened, despairing of even finding its master?
When sometimes, behind his back, they called him a tyrant, he merely smiled and uttered this profound observation: If some day I turn liberal, they will say I have let them down.
The thought is a deed. Of all deeds she fertilizes the world most.
From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there’s still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied.
Yes! live life with every fibre of one’s being, surrender oneself to it, with no thoughts of rebellion, without deluding oneself that one can improve it and render it painless.
In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.
Everything is only a dream.
A new dynasty is never founded without a struggle. Blood makes good manure.
A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy.
In Paris, everything’s for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.
Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?