It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.