I love the night passionately. I love it as I love my country, or my mistress, with an instinctive, deep, and unshakeable love. I love it with all my senses: I love to see it, I love to breathe it in, I love to open my ears to its silence, I love my whole body to be caressed by its blackness. Skylarks sing in the sunshine, the blue sky, the warm air, in the fresh morning light. The owl flies by night, a dark shadow passing through the darkness; he hoots his sinister, quivering hoot, as though he delights in the intoxicating black immensity of space.

One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.

In fact living is dying.

We breathe love as we breathe air; we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us.

The glasses were half full, which meant that the guests were completely so

You'll find that my coquetry is quite impartial, which allows me to keep my friends.

Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies.