Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books - but it is terrible when one has to live it

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself

Have you noticed that life, real honest to goodness life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in newspapers?

Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.

Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy /common clay, if you like /eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can't imagine dead. And then there are the others /the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.