Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them.

Significance is sweet.

It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.

As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better--but you keep working anyway.

You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.

I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor's nature.

Whatever a person may pray for, that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this - Almighty God, grant that two times two not equal four.