He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odor, its form, its title. What he loved in a manuscript was its old illegible date, the bizarre and strange Gothic characters, the heavy gilding which loaded its drawings. It was its pages covered with dust — dust of which he breathed the sweet and tender perfume with delight.

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

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.

All you have to do to make something interesting is to look at it long enough.

Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal.