“To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero; panache is therefore a timid heroism, like the smile with which one excuses one's superiority.”

“She is a mortal danger without meaning to be one; she's exquisite without giving ita thought; shes a trap set by nature, a rose in which love lies in ambush! Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She creates grace without movement and makes all divinity fit into her slightest gesture.And neither Venus in her shell, nor Diana striding in the great, blossoming forest, can compare to her when she goes through the streets of paris in her sedan chair.”

“Roxane: His face is like yours, burning with spirit and imagination. He is proud and noble and young and fearless and beautiful-Cyrano:(losing all his colour.) Beautiful!Roxane: Yes. What's wrong?Cyrano: With me? Nothing. It's only... only... (Displaying his bandaged hand, with a little smile.) This fatal wound.”

“My nose is Gargantuan! You little Pig-snout, you tiny Monkey-Nostrils, you virtually invisible Pekinese-Puss, don't you realize that a nose like mine is both scepter and orb, a monument to me superiority? A great nose is the banner of a great man, a generous heart, a towering spirit, an expansive soul--such as I unmistakably am, and such as you dare not to dream of being, with your bilious weasel's eyes and no nose to keep them apart! With your face as lacking in all distinction--as lacking, I say, in interest, as lacking in pride, in imagination, in honesty, in lyricism--in a word, as lacking in nose as that other offensively bland expanse at the opposite end of your cringing spine--which I now remove from my sight by stringent application of my boot!”

“My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence.”

“I love you, but I should poorly serve the work to which I devote myself anew at the side of one to whom it were less than the greatest thing in the world!”

“...But...to sing,to dream, to smile, to walk, to be alone, be free,with a voice that stirs and an eye that still can see!To cock your hat to one side, when you pleaseat a yes, a no, to fight, or- make poetry!To work without a thought of fame or fortune,on that journey, that you dream of, to the moon!Never to write a line that's not your own...”