It is the public scandal that offends; to sin in secret is no sin at all.

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.

People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

No matter what everybody says, ultimately these things can harm us only by the way we react to them.

Things are only worth what you make them worth.

There is no secret of the heart which our actions do not disclose.

People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.

Great is the fortune of he who possesses a good bottle, a good book, and a good friend.

Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.

The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.

I assure you, an educated fool is more foolish than an uneducated one.

Love is a great master. It teaches us to be what we never were.

Most people die from the remedy rather than from the illness.

People spend most of their lives worrying about things that never happen.

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.

For me the thing that signals a great story is what we might call its autonomy, the fact that it detaches itself from its author like a soap bubble blown from a clay pipe.

The mysterious does not spell itself out in capital letters, as many writers believe, but is always between, an interstice.

What good is a writer if he can't destroy literature? And us... what good are we if we don't help as much as we can in that destruction?