Theophile Gautier

Brevity never fatigues therefore brevity is always a welcome guest.

The cat is a dilettante in fur.

It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat. It is a philosophical animal... one that does not place its affections thoughtlessly.

Yes, the work comes out more beautiful from a material that resists the process, verse, marble, onyx, or enamel.

Books follow morals, and not morals books.

The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist.

I am one of those for whom superfluity is a necessity.

Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

Any man who does not have his inner world to translate is not an artist.

The cat makes himself the companion of your hours of solitude, melancholy and toil.

Critical lice are like body lice, which desert corpses to seek the living.

A cat will be your friend, but never your slave.

I am a man for whom the outside world exists.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.

Fortune loves to give bedroom slippers to people with wooden legs, and gloves to those with no hands.

Sooner barbarity than boredom.

If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend but never your slave.

To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.

I was born to travel and write verse.

Eyes so transparent that through them the soul is seen.

What I write is not for little girls.