There can be no peace of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for further desires.

It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad.

I believe that all true art is classic, but the dictates of the mind rarely permit of its being recognized as such when it first appears.

Less disappointing than life is, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best.

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.

It is desire that engenders belief and if we fail as a rule to take this into account, it is because most of the desires that create beliefs end ... only with our own life.

They like my books better in England than in France; a translation would be very successful there.

At the heart of our friendly or purely social relations, there lurks a hostility momentarily cured but recurring by fits and starts.

It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.

The stellar universe is not so difficult of comprehension as the real actions of other people.