A 'dreamer' is one possesses the gift of dreaming by day. Sure, many dream at night, but don’t also small babies and animals dream at night? To dream by day and dream aloud: Is this not the reward for all the troubles we humans must face?

— Roman Payne

After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Hardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head—for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks.

— Roman Payne

A girl without braids is like a city without bridges.

— Roman Payne

Ah, youth! It was a beautiful night... The moon was out of orbit. The stars were awry. But everything else was exactly as it should have been.

— Roman Payne

Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.

— Roman Payne

Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. Though I’ve never led an army, I am a wanderer. I cradle 'The Odyssey' nights while the moon is waning, as if it were the sweet body of a woman.

— Roman Payne

All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.

— Roman Payne

All that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria.

— Roman Payne

All that I desire in life are three... A wilderness: A beach on the sun-drenched sea, A puff of opium, And thee.

— Roman Payne

Although I love elegant parties, dancing and dining and spending the night with a sweet woman in my arms, my life belongs to literature.

— Roman Payne