Boredom, that silent spider, was spinning its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart.

I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is.

What an elder sees sitting; the young can't see standing.

Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.

Art is nothing without form.

I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.

He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odor, its form, its title. What he loved in a manuscript was its old illegible date, the bizarre and strange Gothic characters, the heavy gilding which loaded its drawings. It was its pages covered with dust — dust of which he breathed the sweet and tender perfume with delight.