That is the mission of art - to make us pause and look at a thing a second time.

The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never.

If you want to be witty, say what you think at all times

I have never learned anything except from people younger than myself.

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

I see that any materialism in life coarsens the soul, and that the hunger of the body and the appetites of the flesh desecrate always, and often destroy.

M. Zola is determined to show that, if he has not got genius, he can at least be dull.