Once I no longer exist as I am, out of what consideration then should I forgo anything? Should I belong to a man I don't love simply because I used to love him? No, I forgo nothing, I love any man who appeals to me and I make any man who loves me happy. Is that ugly? No, it is at least far more beautiful than my cruelly delighting in the tortures incited by my charms and my virtuously turning my back on the poor man who pines away for me. I am young, rich, and beautiful, and just as I am, I live cheerfully for pleasure and enjoyment.

The person who doesn't know how to subjugate will all too quickly feel the other's foot on the nape of his neck.

The true comic muse is the one with tears running down under her laughing mask.

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly.

I love her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony smile.

Every man--I know this--turns weak, pliant, ridiculous as soon as he's in love.

Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, and go mad.