And indeed, what is better than to sit by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is buring?

A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.

I am alone on this road strewn with bones and bordered by ruins! Angels have their brothers, and demons have their infernal companions. Yet I have but the sound of my scythe when it harvests, my whistling arrows, my galloping horse. Always the sound of the same wave eating away at the world

Casting aspersions on those we love always does something to loosen our ties. We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands.

That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.

The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.

One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.