In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.