Indifference and pride look very much alike, and he probably thought I was proud.

The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

It's a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.

I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can't love and do nothing.

I want men to admire me, but that's a trick you learn at school--a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there's something to admire.

The trouble is I don't believe my unbelief.

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.