“Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating: they can breathe it.”

“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.”