I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you.

Pretending is a virtue. If you cant pretend, you can't be king.

Phantoms in general are nothing more than trifling disorders of the spirit; images we cannot contain within the bounds of sleep.

Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart.

The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die.

When a character is born, he acquires at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning which the author never thought of giving him.

We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world. How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value that I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself, too.