She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.

Talent is nothing but long patience.

The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.

Talent is a long patience, and originality an effort of will and intense observation.

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.

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

The principal thing in the world is to keep the soul aloft.