“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.

If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.

With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

To define is to limit.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.