For some men, the stronger their desire, the more difficult it is for them to act.

Remembering the ball became for Emma a daily occupation. Every time Wednesday came round, she told herself when she woke up: 'Ah! One week ago...two weeks ago...three weeks ago, I was there!' And, little by little, in her memory, the faces all blurred together; she forgot the tunes of the quadrilles; no longer could she so clearly picture the liveries and the rooms; some details disappeared, but the yearning remained.

Stupidity consists in wanting to reach conclusions. We are a thread, and we want to know the whole cloth.

Books aren't made in the way that babies are: they are made like pyramids. There's some long-pondered plan, and then great blocks of stone are placed one on top of the other, and it's back-breaking, sweaty, time consuming work. And all to no purpose! It just stands there in the desert! But it towers over it prodigiously. Jackals piss at the base of it, and bourgeois clamber to the top of it, etc. Continue this comparison.

There are some men whose only mission among others is to act as intermediaries; one crosses them like bridges and keeps going.

It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.

You don’t make art out of good intentions.