“A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.”

“Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.”

“Dearer to me than a host of base truths is the illusion that exalts.”

“Mark had a better chance interpreting body language at Madame Tussauds.”

“But my life, oh, my life, had been a constant search for an enormous dream in which my fellow creatures and animals, plants, chimeras, stars, and minerals were in a pre-established harmony, a dream that is forgotten because it must be forgotten, and is sought desperately, and only sporadically does one find its tragic fragments in the warmth of a person, in some specific situation, a glance - in memory too, of course, in some specific pain, some moment. I loved that harmony with a passion; I loved it in voices, voices. And then, instead of harmony, there was nothing but scraps and tatters. And perhaps that alone is what it means to be a poet.”

“But even friendship like our heroes'Exist no more; for we've outgrownAll sentiments and deem men zeroes--Except of course ourselves alone.We all take on Napoleon's features,And millions of our fellow creaturesAre nothing more to us than tools...Since feelings are for freaks and fools.Eugene, of course, had keen perceptionsAnd on the whole despised mankind,Yet wasn't, like so many, blind;And since each rule permits exceptions,He did respect a noble few,And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.”

“what is renoun?more false than hope by dreams engendered.”