If art is to have a special train, the critic must keep some seats reserved on it.

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great, individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist.

I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. ... Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope.

Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman