Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

In order to be created, a work of art must first make use of the dark forces of the soul

There is not one talent for living and another for creating. The same suffices for both. And one can be sure that the talent that could not produce but an artificial work could not sustain but a frivolous life.

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.

The world is unimportant and whoever recognizes this conquers his liberty.

So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories.

Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius... or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.