It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

I do not love men: I love what devours them.

And suddenly I was seized with a desire, a craving, something more furious and more imperious than I had ever felt before—to live! I want to live! I will live. I clenched my teeth, my hands, concentrated my whole being in this wild, grief-stricken endeavour towards existence.

I have a horror of rest; possessions encourage one to indulge in it, and there's nothing like security for making one fall asleep; I like life well enough to live it awake, and so, in the very midst of my riches, I maintain the sensation of a state of precariousness, by which means I aggravate, or at any rate intensify, my life. I will not say I like danger, but I like life to be hazardous, and I want it to demand at every moment the whole of my courage, my happiness, my health...

I hoped at first to find a rather more direct comprehension of life in one or two novelists and poets; but if they really had such a comprehension, it must be confessed they did not show it; most of them, I thought, did not really live - contented themselves with appearing to live, and were on the verge of considering life merely as a vexatious hindrance to writing.

Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.

الموت يقارب بين ما فرّقته الحياة.

The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.