So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.

The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost.

The loss of a sense adds as much beauty to the world as its acquisition.

There is no more ridiculous custom than the one that makes you express sympathy once and for all on a given day to a person whose sorrow will endure as long as his life. Such grief, felt in such a way is always present, it is never too late to talk about it, never repetitious to mention it again.

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

There was nothing abnormal about it when homosexuality was the norm.

Just as those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively, so do those who practice the same vice.