You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading

Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader.

She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward first the scepter of my passion.

Burn pedants in pale fire. Accept no fashions. Be your own fashion. Do not rely on earlier triumphs. Be new at each appearance.

Measure me while I live - after it will be too late.

Stirless, I stand at the window, and in the black bowl of the sky glows like a golden drop of honey the mellow moon