How often my soul visits the National Gallery, and how seldom

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

There are few sorrows in which a good income is of no avail.

What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. But always the rarest, those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.

Money and sex are forces too unruly for our reason; they can only be controlled by taboos with which we tamper at our peril.

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave