Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms. - Anton Chekhov

Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without love cause me suffering!" - "What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked away.

I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.

A woman can only become a man's friend after having first been his acquaintance and then his beloved — then she becomes his friend.