Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.

Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work.

If you participate in life, you don’t see it clearly: you suffer from it too much or enjoy it too much. The artist, to my way of thinking, is a monstrosity, something outside nature. All the misfortunes Providence inflicts on him come from his stubborness in denying that maxim.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

Everything which one invents is true, be sure of it.

You'll always have to deal with bastards, being lied to, deceived, slandered and ridiculed, but that's to be expected and you must thank heaven when you meet the exception.

Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.