“Never regret thy fall,O Icarus of the fearless flightFor the greatest tragedy of them all Is never to feel the burning light.”

“One of the greatest tragedies of my life is the death of Lucien de Rubempré… It haunts me in my moments of pleasure. I remember it when I laugh.”

“Why is it that I can't feel this tragedy as much as I want to?”

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.”

“One of the great secrets of life. Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense and discover too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.”

“After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.”

“That is one of the great secrets of life Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.”