"As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life."

"I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge."

"I have felt the wind on the wing of madness."

"My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it."

"The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day; But on the ground, among the hooting crowds, He cannot walk, his wings are in the way."

"He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window."

"Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art."

"Even when she walks one would believe that she dances."

"A multitude of small delights constitute happiness"

"I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust."

"I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed."

"The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance; We find delight in the most loathsome things; Some furtherance of Hell each new day brings, And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance."

"What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?"

"Extract the eternal from the ephemeral."

"Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?"

"Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty."

"There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze."

"I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror."

"What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters."

"If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist."

"The beautiful is always bizarre."

"Remembering is only a new form of suffering."

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors."

"Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will."