Sometimes, one gesture comprises an entire drama, the accent of one word ruins an entire existence, and the indifference of one glance kills the happiest passion.

Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.

Creole women take after Europe in their intelligence, after the Tropics in the illogical violence of their passions, and after the Indies in the apathetic indolence with which they commit or suffer good and evil.

It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.

A wife is property that one acquires by contract, she is transferable, because possession of her requires title; in fact, woman is, so to speak, only man's appendage; consequently, slice, cut, clip her, you have all rights to her.

No frozen-hearted woman ever I laid eyes on but has made duty her religion.

Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the one we hate can do no right.