Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud.

O heart! love is thy bane and thy antidote.

Young love needs dangers and barriers to nourish it.

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.

When I tried to draw near, you dissolved into air before my lips could touch you...

Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.

I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.