When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child we were and the souls of the dead from whom we have sprung come to lavish on us their riches and their spells.

The character we exhibit in the latter half of our life need not necessarily be, though it often is, our original character, developed further, dried up, exaggerated, or diminished. It can be its exact opposite, like a suit worn inside out.

In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.

I drank a second mouthful in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic.

To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare to fail... failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion

The most powerful soporific is sleep itself.