He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him.

There are three thing in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.

Noble characters and pure affections and happy scenes are very comforting things. They're a refuge from life's disillusionments.

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

What an awful thing life is, isn’t it? It’s like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless.

Emma was no asleep, she was pretending to be asleep; and, while he was dozing off at her side, she lay awake, dreaming other dreams.

Once one has kissed a cadaver's forehead, there always remains something of it on the lips, an infinite bitterness, an aftertasteof nothingness that nothing can erase.