Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

Every true passion thinks only of itself.

Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?

Love is a well from which we can drink only as much as we have put in, and the stars that shine from it are only our eyes looking in.

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.

Love is like fever; it comes and goes without the will having any part of the process.

To find love in Paris you must go down among those classes where the absence of education and of vanity, and the struggle for bare necessities, have allowed more energy to survive.