Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.

Years passed; and he endured the idleness of his intelligence and the inertia of his heart.

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.

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

Women want you to deceive them: they force you to, and if you resist, they blame you.

I am alone on this road strewn with bones and bordered by ruins! Angels have their brothers, and demons have their infernal companions. Yet I have but the sound of my scythe when it harvests, my whistling arrows, my galloping horse. Always the sound of the same wave eating away at the world

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.