It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change. - Colette

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.

Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o’clock … At five I have my abyss.”

As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.