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

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

It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman.

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.

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

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