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

The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.

She remembered the heroines of novels she had read, and the lyrical legion of those adulterous women began to sing in her memory with sisterly voices that enchanted her. Now she saw herself as one of those amoureuses whom she had so envied: she was becoming, in reality, one of that gallery of fictional figures; the long dream of her youth was coming true.

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.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

Art is nothing without form.