“On certain occasions art can shake very ordinary spirits, and whole worlds can be revealed by its clumsiest interpreters.”

“Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art. ”

“Everything measurable passes, everything that can be counted has an end. Only three things are infinite: the sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears.”

“The morality of art consists, for everyone, in the side that flatters its own interests. People do not like literature.”

“It seemed to her that certain parts of the world must produce happiness as they produced peculiar plants which will flourish nowhere else.”

“He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.”

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”