The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women.

Lying, like license, has its degrees.

... what is there over which the incomparable beauty of childhood would not triumph?

I have no enthusiasm for nature which the slightest chill will not instantly destroy.

Art belongs to all times and to all countries; its special benefit is precisely to be still living when everything else seems dying; that is why Providence shields it from too personal or too general passions, and grants it a patient and persevering organization, durable sensibility, and the contemplative sense in which lies invincible faith.

we do not die of anguish, we live on. We continue to suffer. We drink the cup drop by drop.

... everyone's free to embark on either a great clipper or a little fishing boat. An artist is an explorer who oughtn't to shrink from anything: it doesn't matter whether he goes to the left or the right -- his goal sanctifies all.