A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.

This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

A snob is unreliable. The work he praises might just be good.

Language is the only chimera whose illusory power is endless, the inexhaustibility which keeps life from being impoverished. Let men learn to serve language.

Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram.

I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping that something might improve if I viewed allsides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and to be able to use one's prejudice as an excuse.

In the theater one must sit in such a way that one sees the audience as a dark mass. Then it cannot bother one more than it does an actor. Nothing is more disturbing than being able to distinguish individuals in the crowd.