"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."

"The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

"She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep."

"Sadness is a vice."

"I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony."

"We must laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, in a word, vibrate to our full capacity … I think that’s what being really human means."

"But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted."

"He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him."

"Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living."

"The public wants work which flatters its illusions."

"You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful."

"I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is."

"Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again."

"There are two infinities that confuse me: the one in my soul devours me; the one around me will crush me"

"One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us."

"Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory."

"Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory."

"You don’t make art out of good intentions."

"The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy."

"It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling."

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."

"An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space."

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."

"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within."