'Do you really not know,' he said, 'that there exist souls that are ceaselessly in torment? That are driven now to dreams, now to action, driven from the purest passions to the most orgiastic pleasures? No wonder we fling ourselves into all kinds of fantasies and follies!'

And they talked about the mediocrity of provincial life, so suffocating, so fatal to all noble dreams.

Our duty is to feel what is great and love what is beautiful -- not to accept all the social conventions and the infamies they impose on us.

'What an unutterable catastrophe!' The apothecary always had the proper expression ready, whatever the occasion.

She brightened. 'Last week I ran a personal ad in the Guardian. I answered a few too. I'm not looking for sex; I feel too vulnerable for that. I just want some…

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and c…

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.