The Publication Of A Book

I Love Everything That Makes Up A Milieu, The Rolling Of The Carriages And The Noise Of The Workmen In Paris, The Cries Of A Thousand Birds In The Country, The Movement Of The Ships On The Waters. I Love Also Absolute, Profound Silence, And, In Short, I Love Everything That Is Around Me, No Matter Where I Am.

I Loved [fairy Stories] So, And My Mother Weighed Down By Grief Had Given Up Telling Me Them. At Nohant I Found Mmes. D'ardony's And Perrault's Tales In Old Editions Which Became My Chief Joy For Five Or Six Years ... I've Never Read Them Since, But I Could Tell Each Tale Straight Through, And I Don't Think Anything In All One's Intellecutal Life Can Be Compared To These Delights Of Imagination.

You See What Stupid Folk My Publishers Are; But They Are All Alike.

Vanity Is The Most Despotic And Iniquitous Of Masters, And I Can Never Be The Slave Of My Own Vices.

If They Are Ignorant, They Are Despised, If Learned, Mocked. In Love They Are Reduced To The Status Of Courtesans. As Wives They Are Treated More As Servants Than As Companions. Men Do Not Love Them: They Make Use Of Them, They Exploit Them, And Expect, In That Way, To Make Them Subject To The Law Of Fidelity.