“If you decide to join up with me, I want it to be because you're making a rational choice, not because you've been pushed by passion or despair.”

“I haven't any objection to your thoroughly despising me, right now, because I'm convinced you'll come to love me. You'll find I have some tremendous abysses, some huge, focused emotions that fools think of as vices, but you'll never find me lazy, and you'll never find me ungrateful. In a word, I'm neither a pawn nor a bishop, my young friend, but a castle.”

“Young man,' Porbus said, seeing Poussin stare open-mouthed at a picture, 'Don't look at the canvas too long, it will drive you to despair.”

“All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.”

“Surely a man must be in a parlours state to excite pity, extremely weak to inspire sympathy, or very evil-looking to make a soul tremble in a den like this, where pain must hold its tongue, poverty remain cheerful, and despair retain its self respect.”

“You're a fine fastidious young man, as proud as a lion, as gentle as a girl. You'd make a good catch for the devil.”

“Passion is born deaf and dumb.”