Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.

Whatever the thing you wish to say, there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it; you must seek until you find this noun, this verb, this adjective.

I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all

Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears.

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

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.