I have not much interest in anyone's personal history after the tenth year, not even my own. Whatever one was going to be was all prepared before that.

I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.

The greatest art comes out of warmth and conviction and deep feeling, but then, very few people, even geniuses, have all that.

Lovemaking surely must be, for human beings at our present state of development, one of the more private enterprises. Who would want a witness to that entire self-abandonment and helplessness?

Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty.

I love to praise what I love, and I won't for a minute believe that love is blind -- indeed, it gives clearness without sharpness, and surely that is the best light in which to look at anything.

I am in Paris. Yes ma'am , I made it back. I came up from Berlin, stopped here ten days, fought a losing battle against my deepest inclinations, pulled myself out by the hair and went to Madrid...Madrid is a lovely enchanting city, and there was almost ready for me a kind of penthouse full of sunlight, a roof garden, and so on. I gave one look at it all, returned to the hotel and went to bed and wept bitterly for eleven hours...Why? Because I had seen Paris and could not endure the thought of being anywhere else.