Being a useful man has always seemed to me to be something truly hideous.

There are some temptations which are so strong that they must be virtues.

Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.

In my mind it strolls, as well as in my apartment. A cat, strong, sweet and delightful.

In certain almost supernatural states of the soul, the profundity of life reveals itself entirely in the spectacle, however ordinary it may be, before one's eyes. It becomes its symbol.

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

Being a useful man has always seemed to me to be something truly hideous.