Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.

In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low.

Real orgies are never so exciting as pornographic books. In a volume by Pierre Louys all the girls are young and their figures perfect; there's no hiccoughing or bad breath, no fatigue or boredom, no sudden recollections of unpaid bills or business letters unanswered, to interrupt the raptures. Art gives you the sensation, the thought, the feeling quite pure--chemically pure, I mean,... not morally.

Somewhere in the rain, there will always be an abandoned dog that prevents you from being happy.

At their first appearance innovators have always been derided as fools and mad men.

All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.

Industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning.