Man begins by loving love and ends by loving a woman. Woman begins by loving a man and ends by loving love.

Man, in spite of his tendency towards mendacity, has a great respect for what he calls the truth. Truth is his staff in his voyage through life; commonplaces are the bread in his bag and the wine in his jug.

To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes-countrysides and figures, movements and gestures-how could he have a style, that is originality?

Art includes everything that stimulates the desire to live

The human mind is so complex and things are so tangled up with each other that, to explain a blade of straw, one would have to take to pieces an entire universe. A definition is a sack of flour compressed into a thimble.

Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called.

For two thousand years Christianity has been telling us: life is death, death is life; it is high time to consult the dictionary.