There are moments of existence when time and space are more profound, and the awareness of existence is immensely heightened.

Like those great sphinxes lounging through eternity in noble attitudes upon the desert sand, they gaze incuriously at nothing, calm and wise.

The immense profundity of thought in vulgar locutions, like holes dug by generations of ants.

One must work, if not from inclination, at least out of despair — since it proves, on close examination, that work is less boring than amusing oneself.

A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.

So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, be endlessly drunk.

The son will run away from the family not at eighteen but at twelve, emancipated by his gluttonous precocity; he will fly not to seek heroic adventures, not to deliver a beautiful prisoner from a tower, not to immortalize a garret with sublime thoughts, but to found a business, to enrich himself and to compete with his infamous papa.