“I want to fulfill myself in one of the rarest of destinies. I have only a dim notion of what it 
will be. I want it to have not a graceful curve slightly bent toward evening but a hitherto unseen beauty 
lovely because of the danger which works away at it overwhelms it undermines it. Oh let me be only utter
 beauty I shall go quickly or slowly but I shall dare what must be dared. I shall destroy appearances the 
casings will burn away and one evening I shall appear there in the palm of your hand quiet and pure like a
 glass statuette. You will see me. Round about me there will be nothing left.”

“Betrayal is beautiful.”

“It was the first time I saw the look on the face of the people I robbed: it was ugly. I was the cause of such ugliness, and the only thing that made me feel was a cruel pleasure which, I thought, was bound to transfigure my own face, to make me resplendent. I was then 23 years old. From that moment on, I felt capable of advancing in cruelty.”

“Though they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.”

“The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.”

“I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty.”

“A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.”

“To write is your last resort when you've betrayed someone.”

“The pimp has a grin, never a smile.”

“You must now go home, where everything -- you can be quite sure -- will be falser than here....You must go now. You'll leave by the right, through the alley....”

“It's a true image, born of a false spectacle.”