There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.

What fun it would be to be poor, as long as one was excessively poor! Anything in excess is most exhilarating.

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.

When you are forty, half of you belongs to the past… And when you are seventy, nearly all of you.

Things are beautiful if you love them.

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.

Life is very nice, but it lacks form. It’s the aim of art to give it some.

With God, what is terrible is that one never knows whether it’s not just a trick of the devil.

I spit on your happiness! I spit on your idea of life–that life that must go on, come what may. You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell. You with your promise of...

All evil comes from the old. They grow fat on ideas and young men die of them.

Some men like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path.

Oh, love is real enough; you will find it someday, but it has one archenemy – and that is life.

Talent is a faucet. When it is on, one must write. Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.

I like reality. It tastes like bread.

Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.

God is on everyone’s side… and in the last analysis, he is on the side with plenty of money and large armies.

Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.

To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.

Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God.

Every man thinks god is on his side.

An ugly sight, a man who is afraid.

Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.

It bothered me that whatever was waiting wasn’t waiting for me

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.

Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books – but it is terrible when one has to live it.

Our entire life – consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

Et voilà. Maintenant le ressort est bandé. Cela n’a plus qu’à se dérouler tout seul. C’est cela qui est commode dans la tragédie. On donne le petit coup de pouce pour que cela démarre, rien,...

Life has a way of setting things in order and leaving them be. Very tidy, is life.

We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and, ask anyone, the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down.

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.

Saintliness is also a temptation.

Men create real miracles when they use their God-given courage and intelligence.

Have you noticed that life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in newspapers?

A genius knows how to make himself easily understood without being obvious about it.

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.

It takes a certain courage and a certain greatness to be truly base.

What you get free costs too much.

Talent is like a faucet, while it is open, one must write.