All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.

Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

Bourgeois existence is the regime of private affairs . . . and the family is the rotten, dismal edifice in whose closets and crannies the most ignominious instincts are deposited. Mundane life proclaims the total subjugation of eroticism to privacy.

Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

To the lover the loved one always appears as solitary.