The modern painter…is an excellent couturier

Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul.

In the matter of animals I love only cats, but I love them unreasonably for their qualities and in spite of their numerous faults. I have only one, but I could not live without a cat.

The only really indecent people are the chaste.

The modern painter…is an excellent couturier

...he shrunk more and more from the realities of life and above all from the society of his day which he regarded with an ever growing horror,--a detestation which had reacted strongly on his literary and artistic tastes; he refused, as far as possible, to have anything to do with pictures and books whose subjects were in any way connected with modern existence.

Really, when I think it over, literature has only one excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the disgustingness of life.