“Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.”

“The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for what he does not believe in, is a purely literary product. He was invented by Turgenev, and completed by Dostoevsky. Robespierre came out of the pages of Rousseau as surely as the People's Palace rose out debris of a novel. Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.”

“Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.”

“Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.”

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”

“One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.”

“Love! What is love? It's nothing. It's just a word. It doesn't exist. Only pleasure is important.”