"There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him."
"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui."
"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror."
"We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."
"When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."