“We have come from all the countries of the world and are going to Saintes-Maries de la Mer. Nomads of the enigma, we gather there each year after having carried our mystery through ordinary countryside and fluid towns. Since we become transformed by our wanderings we are despised by those who stand still and retain a memory of giant serpents and metallic green.”

“His thoughts were hemmed in. One can only draw curved lines on the terrestrial sphere which, as they extend, forever meet with themselves. At such intersections we always encounter what we have already seen.”

“Pour la première fois, en buvant des cerisesà l'eau-de-vi', je me saoûlai. C'était aux Andelys, je crois, et ma famille me regardait fort amusée. Elle ne pensait pas qu'un jour mes fortes cuites la feraient un peu déchanter”

“Rules cease to exist once they have outlived their value, but forms live on eternally. There are forms of the novel which impose on the suggested topic all the virtues of the Number. Born of the very expression and of the diverse aspects of the tale, connected by nature with the guiding idea, daughter and mother of all the elements that it polarizes, a structure develops, which transmits to the works the last reflections of Universal Light and the last echoes of the Harmony of Worlds.”

“Being or nothing, that is the question. Ascending, descending, coming, going, a man does so much that in the end he disappears.”

“La vie? Un rien l'amène, un rien l'anime, un rien la mine, un rien l'emmène.”

“Toute grande oeuvre est soit une Iliade soit une Odysée, les odysées étant beaucoup plus nombreuse que les iliades: le Satiricon, La Divine Comédie, Pantagruel, Don Quichotte, et naturellement Ulysse (où l'on reconnaît d'ailleurs l'influence directe de Bouvard et Pécuchet) sont des odysées, c'est-à-dire des récits de temps pleins. Les iliades sont au contraire des recherches du temps perdu: devant Troie, sur une île déserte ou chez les Guermantes.”