I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified. As for the mob, I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy.

It was you I thought of all the time, I gave to them the love you did not need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs.

Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They’re the only things we can pay.

The secret of life is in art.

Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.

Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.