“If God permits virtue to be persecuted on earth, it is not for us to question his intentions. It may be that his rewards are held over for another life, for is it not true as written in Holy Scripture that the Lord chastenenth only the righteous! And after all, is not virtue it’s own reward?”

Even those that are not frightful, and there is not one amongst them all that cannot be demonstrated within the boundaries of nature.

One must feel sorry for those who have strange tastes, but never insult them. Their wrong is Nature’s too; they are no more responsible for having come into the world with tendencies unlike ours than are we for being born bandy-legged or well-proportioned.

The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

Were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him?

Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.

Either kill me or take me as I am, because I’ll be damned if I ever change.

One must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.

According to these irrefutable principles, death is hence no more than a change of form, an imperceptible passage from one existence into another.

All universal moral principles are idle fancies.

There are thorns everywhere, but along the path of vice, roses bloom above them.

Don’t have children: they deform women’s bodies and turn into an enemy 20 years later.

Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race.

There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship.

We monsters are necessary to nature also.

Oh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!

It is one thing to touch a flame and know it is hot, but quite another to jump into that flame and be consumed by it.

That vie with one another (“qui rivalisent à l’envi,” Fr.), by the increase of their armies and the improvement of their engines of murder (“engins meurtriers”, Fr).

We need to find another way or another shape or an allegory or something that tells us more.

I don’t expect that because I was successful in one field that I will then get a ride of passage into another.

I don’t watch my own films. There is little time; I’d rather see another film.

You can buy a good pasta but when you cook it yourself it has another feeling.

I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions.

We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation.