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.

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.

Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.

It is the hardest thing to close the open hand of someone you love.

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.

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.

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.