Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity.

Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, which make up one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable. This transitory fugitive element, which is constantly changing, must not be despised or neglected.

Finer than any sand are dusts of gold that gleam, Vague starpoints, in the mystic iris of their eyes.

Even as a child I felt in my heart two opposite emotions: the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.

Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.

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.

It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner.