But what does it matter what reality is outside myself, so long as it has helped me to live, to feel that I am, and what I am?

---

Let us beware of common folk, common sense, sentiment, inspiration, and the obvious.

---

As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.

---

He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.

---

Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art.

---

I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.

---

I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.

---

Passion I hate, and spirit does me wrong. Let us love gently.

---

Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.

---

I can barely conceive a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy.

---