Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.

Happy are they who don't doubt themselves and whose pens fly across the page. I myself hesitate, I falter, I become angry and fearful, my drive diminishes as my taste improves, and I brood more over an ill-suited word than I rejoice over a well-proportioned paragraph.

The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.