The anxiety we have for the figure we cut, for our personage, is constantly cropping out. We are showing off and are often more concerned with making a display than with living. Whoever feels observed observes himself.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.

Clear and precise ideas are the most dangerous, for one does not dare to change them.

Laws and rules of conduct are for the state of childhood; education is an emancipation.

The bad novelist constructs his characters; he directs them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them act; he hears their voices even before he knows them.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.