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?

We live less and less, and we learn more and more. Sensibility is surrendering to intelligence.

Nothing exists except by virtue of a disequilibrium, an injustice. All existence is a theft paid for by other existences; no life flowers except on a cemetery.

Most men who rail against women are railing at one woman only.

Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him.

If the secret of being a bore is to tell all, the secret of pleasing is to say just enough to be -not understood, but divined.

To know what everyone knows is to know nothing.