The theatre is the involuntary reflex of the ideas of the crowd.

Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country.

Slow down? Rest? With all eternity before me?

I refuse the title of artist to those who owe their reputations to a physical deformity. I regard them as buffoons.

He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.

Alas, we are the victims of advertisement. Those who taste the joys and sorrows of fame when they have passed forty, know how to look after themselves. They know what is concealed beneath the flowers, and what the gossip, the calumnies, and the praise are worth. But as for those who win fame when they are twenty, they know nothing, and are caught up in the whirlpool.

I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.