I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports.... When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.

Stupidity is an immovable object: you can't try to attack it wiithout being broken by it.

The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.

One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.

Put all your rage and madness into your work and live as orderly a life as possible.

I like prostitution. My heart has never failed to pound at the sight of one of those provocatively dressed women walking in the rain under the gaslamps, just as the sight of monks in their robes and girdles touches some ascetic, hidden corner of my soul.

Love, to her, was something hat comes suddenly, like a blinding flash of lightening - a heaven-sent storm hurled into life, uprooting it, sweeping every will before it like a leaf, engulfing all feelings.