Well, we must wait for the future to show.

I have sometimes dreamt ... that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards -- their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble -- the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.

To read a novel is a difficult and complex art. You must be capable not only of great fineness of perception, but of great boldness of imagination.

At one and the same time, therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever

One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with one's words.

You can't think how I depend on you, and when you're not there the colour goes out of my life.

But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.