Isn’t ‘not to be bored’ one of the principal goals of life?

Be orderly and disciplined in daily life, like a good bourgeois, so that I might be wild and violent in my art.

Snicker on hearing his name: 'the gentleman who thinks we are descended from the apes.'

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.

(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.

The most important thing in the world is to hold your soul aloft.

Art is nothing without form.