We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs... of our barbarous ancestors.

Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness.

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

I told myself: 'I am surrounded by unknown things.' I imagined man without ears, suspecting the existence of sound as we suspect so many hidden mysteries, man noting acoustic phenomena whose nature and provenance he cannot determine. And I grew afraid of everything around me – afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment that everything is limitless, what remains? Does emptiness actually not exist? What does exist in this apparent emptiness?

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.

To lie about a far country is easy