The sea has neither meaning nor pity.

I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time.

A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.

I'm the seagull. No, that's not it. I'm an actress. That's it.

Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.

I often wonder: suppose we could begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light ... I have a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry. ... No, no!

A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.