The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.

Mademoiselle Cocotte.

Killing is decreed by law but nature loves eternal youth. Whatever she does, however unconscious and unfeeling the act, she seems to cry out: 'Quick! Quick! Quick!' And the more she destroys, the more she is renewed.

The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.

A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.

History, that excitable and unreliable old lady.

I said, 'If other beings besides us exist on Earth, why didn't we meet them a long time ago?

She was a sweet girl but not really pretty, a rough sketch of a woman with a little of everything in her, one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature sometimes turns out creatures like that.

The kiss itself is immortal. It travels from lip to lip, century to century, from age to age. Men and women garner these kisses, offer them to others and then die in turn.

It is the encounters with people that make life worth living.

The simplest of women are wonderful liars who can extricate themselves from the most difficult dilemmas with a skill bordering on genius.

Perhaps, also this short embrace may infuse in their veins a little of this thrill which they would not have known without it, and will give to those two dead souls, brought to life in a second, the rapid and divine sensation of this intoxication, of this madness which gives to lovers more happiness in an instant than other men can gather during a whole lifetime.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

My Uncle Sosthenes.

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it.

Human nature itself seemed to her obscene, when she thought of all the filthy secrets of sensuality, the degrading caresses, all the mysterious connexions that cannot be broken off, at which she guessed.

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.

But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible splendor?

O sleep! ridiculous mystery which makes faces appear so grotesque, you are the revealer of human ugliness. You uncover all shortcomings, all deformities and all defects. You turn every face touched by you into a caricature.

Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies.

Solitude is obviously dangerous for people with active brains. We need men around us who have ideas and like talking. Leave us alone for any length of time, and we start filling the void with supernatural creatures.

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.