A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.

If you participate in life, you don’t see it clearly: you suffer from it too much or enjoy it too much. The artist, to my way of thinking, is a monstrosity, something outside nature. All the misfortunes Providence inflicts on him come from his stubborness in denying that maxim.

My foregrounds are imaginary, my backgrounds real.

But an infinity of passions can be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a tiny space.

It is an excellent habit to look at things as so many symbols.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

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