What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for beauty, and never see the dawn!

What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

The truth is that the phenomena of artistic production are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so far from an accurate scientific and psychological knowledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced to accept them as empirical facts; and empirical and non-explanatory names are the names that suit them best.

This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.

Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there isn't a God.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

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