Once [a cat] has given its love, what absolute confidence, what fidelity of affection!

The years I have squandered in puerile excitement, in going hither and thither, in seeking to force nature and time, I ought to have spent in solitude and meditation, in endeavoring to make myself worthy of being loved.

The cat makes himself the companion of your hours of solitude, melancholy and toil.

It is gentle manners which prove so irresistible in women.

Sooner barbarity than boredom.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

Critical lice are like body lice, which desert corpses to seek the living.