It is an excellent habit to look at things as so many symbols.

May I die like a dog rather than hasten the ripening of a sentence by a single second!

How we keep these dead souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his necropolis.

But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.

He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.

Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself and please yourself: isn’t that the main thing? And then the public is so stupid. Besides, who reads? And what do they read? And what do they admire?

There comes a point at which you stop writing and think all the more