To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Quelle atroce invention que celle du bourgeois, n'est-ce pas?

One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier.

An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.

The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.

Axiom: hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom.