What I’ve loved most after you, is myself: that is, my dignity and that strength which made me superior to other men. That Strength was my life. You’ve broken it with a word, so I must die.

...joy takes a strange effect at times, it seems to oppress us almost the same as sorrow.

Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight.

We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.

I came to Paris with four écus in my pocket, and I’d have fought with anybody who told me I was in no condition to buy the Louvre.

I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and independent, relying only on my own resources, and accountable only to myself.

Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.