I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.

Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.

You don’t make art out of good intentions.

Exuberance is better than taste.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.