The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

I took Eugene Sue's Arthur from the reading-room. It's indescribable, enough to make you vomit. You have to read this to realize the pitifulness of money, success, and the public. Literature has become consumptive. It spits and slobbers, covers its blisters with salve and sticking-plaster, and has grown bald from too much hair-slicking. It would take Christ of art to cure this leper.

There are three thing in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.

As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.

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

He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.