“I yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women whom we love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore the ordinary rules of common-sense.”

“When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.”

“Yes,' Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, 'this Catholic faith to which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for themselves; hope is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a lie between us and our fellows; and pity, and prudence, and terror are cunning lies. And now my happiness is to be one more lying delusion; I am expected to delude myself, to be willing to give gold coin for silver to the end. If you can so easily dispense with my visits; if you confess me neither as your friend nor your love, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool that I am, tell myself this, and know it, and love you!”

“True love rules especially through memory.”

“Love is the poetry of the senses!”

“The more a man judges, the less he loves”

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”