The hearts of women are like those little pieces of furniture with secret hiding - places, full of drawers fitted into each other; you go a lot of trouble, break your nails, and in the bottom find some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness!

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.

It seems to me... that I have always lived! I possess memories that go back to the Pharoahs. I see myself very clearly at different ages of history, practicing different professions... My present personality is the result of my lost [past] personalities.

A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.

Melancholy is a sensual pleasure that is deliberately provoked. How many people shut themselves away to make themselves sadder, or to weep beside a stream, or choose a sentimental book! We are constantly building and unbuilding ourselves.

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