And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather aremetaphors.

Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.

Melancholy is a sensual pleasure that is deliberately provoked. How many people shut themselves away to make themselves sadder, or to weep beside a stream, or choose a sentimental book! We are constantly building and unbuilding ourselves.

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

I know nothing more noble than the contemplation of the world.

Once one has kissed a cadaver's forehead, there always remains something of it on the lips, an infinite bitterness, an aftertasteof nothingness that nothing can erase.