It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Obsessions of the Orient, of the desert, of its ardor and its emptiness, of the shadows of palm gardens, of the garments white and wide - obsessions where the senses go berserk, where nerves are exasperated, and which made me, at the onset of each night, believe sleep impossible.

Drunkenness is never anything but a substitute for happiness.

I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.

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

To love the truth is to refuse to let oneself be saddened by it.

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.