When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

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.

All I'm saying is that you should show some respect for what other people see with their eyes and feel with their fingers, even though it be the exact opposite.

Women are like dreams, they are never the way you would like to have them.

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

Our spirits have their own private way of understanding each other, of becoming intimate, while our external persons are still trapped in the commerce of ordinary words, in the slavery of social rules. Souls have their own needs and their own ambitions, which the body ignores when it sees that it's impossible to satisfy them or achieve them.

The facts are to blame, my friend. We are all imprisoned by facts: I was born, I exist.