“...the vulgarity of an environment as bleakly desolate as the neon lights of the factory where the men go each morning, like sinners returning to hell...”

“To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things...”

“What is an aristocrat? A woman who is never sullied by vulgarity, although she may be surrounded by it.”

“To rich people it must seem that the ordinary little people..experience human emotions with less intensity and greater indifference...The fact that we might be going through hell like any other human being, or that our hearts might be filling with rage as Lucien's suffering ravaged our lives, or that we might be slowly going to pieces inside, in the torment of fear and horror that death inspires in everyone, did not cross the mind of anyone on these premises.”

“I don't give a damn about where I happen to be, provided nothing stops me from going into my mind.”

“Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed.”

“Apparently, now and again adults take the time to sit down and contemplate what a disaster their life is. They complain without understanding and, like flies constantly banging against the same old windowpane, they buzz around, suffer, waste away, get depressed then wonder how they got caught up in this spiral that is taking them where they don't want to go.”