There are in me, in literary terms, two distinct characters: one who is taken with roaring, with lyricism, with soaring aloft, with all the sonorities of phrase and summits of thought; and the other who digs and scratches for truth all he can, who is as interested in the little facts as the big ones, who would like to make you feel materially the things he reproduces.

He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.

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

Put all your rage and madness into your work and live as orderly a life as possible.

And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather aremetaphors.

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

Concern for morality makes every work of the imagination false and stupid.