“Your soul is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees.”

To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already exists in each one of us. The duty and task of a writer are those of translator.

Only by art can we get outside ourselves, instead of seeing only one world, our own, we see it under multiple forms.

Just as those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively, so do those who practice the same vice.

Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.

It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.

The bonds that unite another person to our self exist only in our mind.

If we are to make reality endurable, we must all nourish a fantasy or two.

We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another.

Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

When I am not too sad to listen, music is my consolation.

The bonds that unite us to another human being are sanctified when he or she adopts the same point of view as ourselves in judging one of our imperfections.

We live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom: our body.

An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase full of scents and sounds and projects and climates.

In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world, our own, we see it multiplied and as many original artists as there are, so many worlds are at our disposal.