My heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad.

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

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.

You know how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors.

You have a curious way of arousing one's imagination, stimulating all one's nerves, and making one's pulses beat faster. You put an aureole on vice, provided only if it is honest. Your ideal is a daring courtesan of genius. Oh, you are the kind of man who will corrupt a woman to her very last fiber.

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

A real apple is more beautiful than a painted one, and a live woman is more beautiful than a Venus of stone.