There are three thing in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

I’m dazzled by your facility. In ten days you’ll have written six stories! I don’t understand it… I’m like one of those old aqueducts: there’s so much rubbish cogging up the banks of my thought that it flows slowly, and only spills from the end of my pen drop by drop.

The hearts of women are like those little pieces of furniture with secret hiding - places, full of drawers fitted into each other; you go a lot of trouble, break your nails, and in the bottom find some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness!

Abstraction can provide stumbling blocks for people of strange intelligence.

Talent is long patience.

One day, I shall explode like an artillery shell and all my bits will be found on the writing table.