You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood.

If I can't enjoy the full and total happiness of love, then I want to drain its torments, its tortures to the dregs; then I want the woman I love to mistreat me, betray me, and the more cruelly the better. That too is a pleasure.

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.

People who want to live like Olympian gods must have slaves whom they throw into their fishponds and gladiators who fight during their masters sumptuous banquets-and the pleasure-seekers never care if some blood splatters on them.

Pleasure alone makes existence worthwhile. A pleasure-seeker has a difficult time parting from life.

Every woman has the instinct, the propensity to profit from her charms, and there's a lot to be said for giving oneself without love, without pleasure.

Why become well-versed in science and the arts if not to impress a lovely little woman?