“I reflected, not for the first or last time, that when you are reading, others think they can disturb you because you are not doing anything.”

“Hatred is a waste of anyone's time.”

“The Revolution has shown us that the advantages and opinion of society, which I thought everything, are really nothing, and always have been nothing. It is only our vanity that led us to believe otherwise...”

“Even the most honorable of men know nothing of what love means to a woman. They feel pleasure, and that is their aim. A woman believes that love itself is her whole aim and pleasure merely one branch of a vast tree, deeply rooted in her heart. She believes it is her profound duty to care for this tree, nourish it each day, and give all of its fruits exclusively to one man and to her children. This in itself demands a sacrifice that men cannot comprehend.”

“Youth must be the worst time in anybody's life. Everything's happening for the first time, which means that sorrow, then, lasts forever. Later, you can see that there was something very beautiful in it. That's because you ain't got to go through it no more.”

“Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty— they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’ He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. ‘You play it safe long enough,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me.”

“You know, people think I’m a little crazy because of what I do for fun, but I don’t think I have anything on you.”