Honoré de Balzac

I am a galley slave to pen and ink.

It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.

Passion is univeral humanity. Without it religion history art and romance would be useless.

La solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose.

Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.

As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move…similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.

If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.

Is there any instinct more deeply implanted in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a protection which is constantly exerted for a fragile and defenceless creature?

A man who prides himself on going in a straight line through life is an idiot who believes in infallibility.

Yes,' Montriveau went on in an unsteady voice, 'this Catholic faith to which you wish to convert me is a lie that men make for themselves; hope is a lie at the expense of the future; pride, a lie between us and our fellows; and pity, and prudence, and terror are cunning lies. And now my happiness is to be one more lying delusion; I am expected to delude myself, to be willing to give gold coin for silver to the end. If you can so easily dispense with my visits; if you confess me neither as your friend nor your love, you do not care for me! And I, poor fool that I am, tell myself this, and know it, and love you!

Women always persuade men they have made into sheep that they are lions with a will of iron.

Karşılık görmemiş duygular bazı ruhlarda kin haline gelir, bende ise öyle olmadı; yoğunlaştı bu duygular içimde, bir yer etti kendine, sonra da oradan hayatıma fışkırdı.

Emile was a journalist who had acquired more reputation by doing nothing than others from a successful productive career. A bold, biting, spirited critic, he possessed all the qualities of his defects. Jovial and outspoken, he would blister a friend to his face with a thousand sarcasms but, behind his back, he would defend him with courage and loyalty. He made fun of everything, his own prospects included. Always short of money, he remained, like all men with a future before them, wallowing in inexpressible idleness, condensing a whole book into one epigram for the benefit of people who were incapable of putting one witticism into a whole book. Lavish of promises that he never kept, he had made his fortune and reputation into a cushion on which he slept, thus running the risk of coming to his senses, as an old man, in an almshouse. With all that, keeping faith with his friends to the point of death, a swaggering cynic and as simple-hearted as a child, he worked only by fits and starts or under the spur of necessity.

"He hesitated till the last moment, but finally dropped them in the box, saying, "I shall win!" — the cry of a gambler, the cry of the great general, the compulsive cry that has ruined more men than it has ever saved."

Life cannot go on without a great deal of forgetting.