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

The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.

What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love.

One mustn't always believe that feeling is everything. In the arts, it is nothing without form.

Remembering the ball became for Emma a daily occupation. Every time Wednesday came round, she told herself when she woke up: 'Ah! One week ago...two weeks ago...three weeks ago, I was there!' And, little by little, in her memory, the faces all blurred together; she forgot the tunes of the quadrilles; no longer could she so clearly picture the liveries and the rooms; some details disappeared, but the yearning remained.

And the more he was irritated by her basic personality, the more he was drawn to her by a harsh, bestial sensuality, illusions of a moment, which ended in hate.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.