“It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your imagination and make them pop like chestnuts.”

“(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.”

“There are some men whose only mission among others is to act as intermediaries; one crosses them like bridges and keeps going.”

“He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him.”

“Thought is the greatest of pleasures —pleasure itself is only imagination—have you ever enjoyed anything more than your dreams?”

“Come, let’s be calm: no one incapable of restraint was ever a writer.”

“The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel.”