There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman.

I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity.

It was always the same; other people gave up loving before she did. They got spoilt, or else they went away; in any case, they were partly to blame. Why did it happen so? She herself never changed; when she loved anyone, it was for life. She could not understand desertion; it was something so huge, so monstrous that the notion of it made her little heart break.

They talked so, with secret hearts, without needing words, talking of other things... They could have suddenly continued their confessions aloud, without ceasing to understand each other.

Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco.

She might have liked to try to strangle him with those slender fingers of hers, but she wanted to make a job of it and this great patience with which she waited for her claws to grow was in itself a form of enjoyment.

How evil life must be if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries of physical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to heaven!