Genuflection before the idol or the dollar destroys the muscles which walk and the will that moves.

The soul does not give itself up to despair until it has exhausted all illusions.

The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.

The real, native South Seas food is lousy. You can't eat it.

Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

I am in the night. There is a being who has gone away and carried the heavens with her. Oh! to be laid side by side in the same tomb, hand clasped in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, to caress a finger gently, that would suffice for my eternity.