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

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

Cruel men cry easily at the cinema.

I’m not at peace anymore. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I want to be eating sandwiches with him. I want to be drinking with him in a bar. I’m tired and I don’t want anymore pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love. Dear God, you know I want to want Your pain, but I don’t want it now. Take it away for a while and give it me another time.

As long as nothing happens anything is possible.

A writer doesn't write for his readers, does he? Yet he has to take elementary precautions all the same, to make them comfortable.

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.