It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?

Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

Besides, every experience is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose.

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

There are works which wait, and which one does not understand for a long time; the reason is that they bring answers to questions which have not yet been raised; for the question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer.

I would sooner lose my best friend than my worst enemy. To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?