Throw away my book: you must understand that it represents only one of a thousand attitudes. You must find your own. If someone else could have done something as well as you, don’t do it. If someone else could have said something as well as you, don’t say it—or written something as well as you, don’t write it. Grow fond only of that which you can find nowhere but in yourself, and create out of yourself, impatiently or patiently, ah! that most irreplaceable of beings.

The great artist is one whom constraint exalts, for whom the obstacle is a springboard.

It is with fine sentiments that bad literature is made. Descend to the bottom of the well if you wish to see the stars.

The nationalist has a broad hatred and a narrow love.

The important thing is being capable of emotions, but to experience only one's own would be a sorry limitation.

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one's youth, one's greatest indignation would be for what one has become.