Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.

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.

In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.

Mediocrity cherishes rules; as for me, I hate them; I feel for them and for every restriction, corporation, caste, hierarchy, level, herd, a loathing which fills my soul, and it is in this respect perhaps that I understand martyrdom.

One day, I shall explode like an artillery shell and all my bits will be found on the writing table.

One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.