Childhood memories surge back more vividly midway through life – like some palimpsest whose original text suddenly reappears after the manuscript has been chemically treated.

— Gérard de Nerval

Don’t wait up for me tonight, for the night will be black and white.

— Gérard de Nerval

Even as it clouds our corporeal vision, intoxication clarifies our spiritual vision. The mind, set free from the heavy bondage of the body, flees away like a prisoner whose guard has fallen asleep, leaving the keys at the prison gate.

— Gérard de Nerval

Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.

— Gérard de Nerval

Everything is alive, everything is in motion, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays that emanate from me or from others flow directly through the infinite chain of creation whose transparent network is in continuous communication with the planets and the stars. A captive here on earth for the moment, I commune with the chorus of stars, and they join in my sorrows and joys.

— Gérard de Nerval

I am the other.

— Gérard de Nerval

I have seen so many lands vanish in my wake, torn down like stage sets. What survives of them? An image as fleeting as a dream: whatever beauties I discovered, I already knew by heart.

— Gérard de Nerval

Illusions fall away one after another like the husks of a fruit, and that fruit is experience. It is bitter to the taste, but there is fortitude to be found in gall – forgive me my old-fashioned turns of phrase.

— Gérard de Nerval

It is impossible for a Parisian to resist the desire to flick through the old volumes laid out by a book

— Gérard de Nerval

Man, free thinker! Do you imagine you alone think in this world where life is blazing forth in all things? You are free to avail yourself of the forces you command, but the universe has gone missing from your prescriptions.

— Gérard de Nerval