If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.

A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.

I should think I'm going to be a perpetual student.

An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.

Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.

Is it our job to judge? The gendarme, policemen and bureaucrats have been especially prepared by fate for that job. Our job is towrite, and only to write.