The loveliest tune imaginable becomes vulgar and insupportable as soon as the public begins to hum it and the hurdy-gurdies make it their own.

Worshiping the Devil is no more insane than worshiping God...It is precisely at the moment when positivism is at its high-water mark that mysticism stirs into life and the follies of occultism begin.

Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.

The modern painter…is an excellent couturier

He realized at last that the arguments of pessimism were powerless to comfort him

Immersed in solitude, he would dream or read far into the night. By protracted contemplation of the same thoughts, his mind grew sharp, his vague, undeveloped ideas took on form.

Menacing lines of black tomorrows on the horizon.

Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul.

Only the chaste are truly obscene.

How inferior the human machine is, compared to man-made machines. They can be decoked, unscrewed, oiled and parts replaced. Decidedly, nature is not a very wonderful thing.

Really, when I think it over, literature has only one excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the disgustingness of life.

The purification of the mind is very necessary. (72)

The universe may not always play fair, but at least it's got a hell of a sense of humor.

They waste life in what are called good resolutions-partial efforts at reformation, feebly commenced, heartlessly conducted, and hopelessly concluded.

The beauty of the human mind is that any decision that is made can be unmade.

I may not be in control of anything else, but I am in control of my body.

I like the second better, but the first fits with the vampire watching what she can’t have.” I blinked. “What he can’t have,” I amended, flushing.

There's many a slip twixt the blueprints and a new house.

Trees in winter lose their leaves. Some trees may even fall during storms, but most stand patiently and bear their fortune.

Trust God, and do the next thing.

I have studied at the school of the world.