On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us – ah! what a dream, to live in that! – the other stifles us at the first breath.
As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.
The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.
Is suffering so very serious? …I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful… hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain… is no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.
